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Business Profile

Credit and Debt Counseling

Advantage Credit Counseling Service Inc

Complaints

This profile includes complaints for Advantage Credit Counseling Service Inc's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see

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Advantage Credit Counseling Service Inc has 5 locations, listed below.

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    Customer Complaints Summary

    • 2 total complaints in the last 3 years.
    • 1 complaint closed in the last 12 months.

    If you've experienced an issue

    Submit a Complaint

    The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

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    Complaint status

    Complaint type

    • Initial Complaint

      Date:09/06/2024

      Type:Billing Issues
      Status:
      AnsweredMore info

      Complaint statuses

      Resolved:
      The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
      Unresolved:
      The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
      Answered:
      The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
      Unanswered:
      The business failed to respond to the dispute.
      Unpursuable:
      BBB is unable to locate the business.
      This company will NOT file debtors education certificates with the court. This inaction creates a risk that their clients bankruptcy cases will be closed without discharge, and creates excess work for their client's attorney.

      I specifically recommended my client take their credit counseling course with another agency, through what I assume to be nefarious advertisement my client accidently took the course with these people, and now we are scrambling at the last minute to get her certificate on file before her case closes.

      Business Response

      Date: 09/10/2024

      Advantage Credit Counseling Service, Inc. does not file
      bankruptcy education certificates with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on behalf of
      the client.  Agency disclosures clearly state that the completed
      certificate will be sent to the client.  The agency does not advertise
      anywhere that it will file the certificate with the court, nor does it do direct
      advertising to clients who have filed for bankruptcy.  The course in
      question was completed by the client on August 13, 2024 and Advantage emailed
      the Debtor Education Certificate to Attorney Pappas and to his client promptly
      the next business day August 14, 2024.  
    • Initial Complaint

      Date:03/14/2024

      Type:Service or Repair Issues
      Status:
      AnsweredMore info

      Complaint statuses

      Resolved:
      The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
      Unresolved:
      The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
      Answered:
      The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
      Unanswered:
      The business failed to respond to the dispute.
      Unpursuable:
      BBB is unable to locate the business.
      This agency was suppose to provide help to ******** ******** in paying off my credit card debt with US Bank. However this agency acting in bad faith withdrew over a $100.00 dollars every month for an entire year never making any payments to ******** ********** two credit cards. I demand to have this agency thoroughly investigated as to why they found it necessary to act in such a fraudlent manner siphoning off my pillage from social security how sad that this credit counseling service agency displays the same behavior as Magellan Public Solutions. That being said, perhaps the office of the Attorney General Jim Petro/Dave Yost needs to peek into how and why this agency riped off ******** with intent to decieve. More over, perhaps the feds should look over Advantage Credit Counseling Services maybe others have been scamed as well.
      The account in question ******013-***********.
      See Attached.

      Business Response

      Date: 03/20/2024

      ******** ******** enrolled in a
      debt management program with Advantage Credit Counseling Service, Inc. on
      August 20, 2022.  *** ******** signed a
      debt management program agreement and an Automatic Withdrawal Payment Plan
      giving Advantage permission to debit her payment from her bank account
      beginning on September 8.  *** ********’s
      initial payment was $220, which included a $45 set up fee, $169 payment to her two
      US Bank creditor accounts and a $6 monthly fee to Advantage CCS. 

      For the next 13 months, *** ******** paid $187, which was disbursed to her creditors, less the $6 monthly
      fee.  *** ******** paid her accounts as
      agreed until November 8, 2023 when her money was returned by the client’s bank due
      to insufficient funds.  Agency
      representatives attempted to contact her via telephone multiple times, but the
      phone numbers on file were both out of service. 
      The agency also attempted to mail *** ******** a letter, but the letter
      was returned as undeliverable.  *** ******** never provided an email address as an additional contact method.  *** ********’s program was terminated by the
      agency on November 16th, 2023.

      On March 19th, after
      being notified of this complaint, the agency again attempted to contact her via
      telephone using the number listed on this complaint, but the number was also no
      longer in service.  *** ******** has been
      removed from the debt management program. 
      All payments to her creditors, US Bank, were made as agreed upon up
      until the agency received notification of insufficient funds from the
      bank.   At the time of her removal from
      the program, $2,651 was paid on her accounts.

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