Tayne Law Group

A lot of the debt they settle, you are able to settle on your own. They charge a 39 % fee on money they supposedly save you. However, you can settle for the same creditor with the same outcome as then without the 39% fee. They charge you several thousands of dollars if you have a creditor sues you in court, and they have to file a response. They are worse than the creditors themselves. At least the creditors want to settle their debt. They are trying to extort you for more money because you're vulnerable.

User's recommendation: Don’t use them.

Let me preface this post by stating the obvious - my needing a company like this at all proves I have made financial mistakes. I'm not just some disgruntled former client, I'm someone like you who is still in the process of going through one of the toughest things in the world – getting rid of debt. If you’re reading reviews on companies like this then chances are you're in some financial crisis. If you’re in trouble never lose sight of the fact that companies like this make their living preying off people in terrible situations. If I can use my experience to help prevent someone else from repeating my mistakes then the time spent to write it is worth it. WARNING: Make sure you actually READ all the terms & conditions of the retainer & any other documents provided BEFORE YOU SIGN with them. Nobody ever outright lied to me but they are not forthcoming either. You really need do your due diligence. I learned this the hard way when I left them to file bankruptcy. In layman’s terms if you sign with them today & fire them tomorrow you owe like $20K even if they never helped you. If you’re in debt to the extent that you’re considering a company like this you should ask yourself can I afford to add to my debt even more. Here's my sad little tale: I was drowning in debt but by some miracle still paying my bills on time & had a good credit rating. I turned to this firm out of complete and utter desperation. I wanted to believe this was a better option than those debt relief companies you often hear advertised. I was naïve to think that they actually cared about my plight. In my case the human thing to do would've been to advise me to file. Instead I was signed on to their “program” & advised to stop paying my bills. It felt like someone telling me to walk into a moving car, it just wasn’t natural. It was explained that if I continue to be a good payer then there would be no incentive for my debtors to negotiate. When you’re drowning you don’t question the motives of the person who tosses you a life raft. As reckless as it felt to follow through I told myself they were the experts and I trusted them. Listening to them is one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made in my entire life. What is equally troubling about this “program” is the lack of transparency. There was absolutely no system I could access accounting my debts vs. payables. When I inquired I'd receive an email summary from some back office employee not worth the paper I printed it on. When I asked how long I'd be in the “program” they couldn’t give me a timeline. Blind, I became deeply concerned that this was all BS. Their advice put me in a worse situation, they made me reliant on them, & then it felt like they were just taking my money just like what drug dealers do to addicts. If the stress of the debt wasn’t enough when the phone calls began it was soul crushing. Suddenly my voicemail inbox was over capacity and family members began growing concerned about their inability to reach me because of it. I was advised to not answer the calls and let them handle it. By ignoring the calls debt collectors started tracking down extended family members. I am a private person but this chapter in my life forced me to have to come out to my family that I was in serious financial trouble. It made me feel deeply ashamed. It was as if I was in free fall and at any moment I was going to land smack on the pavement in a bloody mess. I started to feel sickened over the notion that I was worth more dead than alive. That’s when I came to the decision that I needed to stop this insanity & just file. That's when this firm stepped on my neck while I was down slapping me with an $18K bill. Sure, everyone I dealt with at this firm is polite & professional as the "reviews" will tell you. The founder is articulate & polished. I watched videos of them speaking about debt and their philosophy on their customers. I feel I was taken in by a wolf in sheep's clothing & all of that was just part of the design. The reality is I should have just filed bankruptcy from the beginning. I believe they understood how dire my situation was & yet they allowed me to waste a year with them out of pure greed. In the time I worked with them they claim to have negotiated down an account or two but that doesn’t level out all that I went through. What they did for me is like raking leaves on a windy day. They put it in a pretty pile but by not bagging them invariably the wind blows them everywhere. They position themselves as an alternative to bankruptcy as though filing is the worst thing you can possibly do in the world. After having gone through it I don’t see how the damage they instructed me do to my credit is any different than filing bankruptcy. By filing Chapter 13 I was able to get some semblance of control back. There's complete transparency, I can login to an accounting of my debts vs. payables & in 5 years it will be a distant memory. Good luck with your situation.