In the last few years I have done several consultations with consumers that were considering enrolling into New Era Debt Solutions for assistance in negotiating their debts with creditors. One thing that I have noticed pretty consistently is that consumers are confused as to the amount of fees that New Era Debt Solutions actually charges their clients. Part of this confusion comes from the fact that sometime toward the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009 New Era changed their settlement fee from 33% of the amount that they saved their clients to 15% of the total debt enrolled. (high fee, typical of most companies in the industry)
Another reason for the confusion is that even though New Era charges their fee on total debt, it is charged at the time the accounts are settled as opposed to upfront and before settlements are reached. Charging fees at the time of negotiations as opposed to upfront like most settlement programs is a much better situation for consumers. However, because the fees are charged at the time of savings, many consumers mistakenly believe that the fee is 15% of what is saved as opposed to 15% of total debt. Considering that this fact could double what a client believes the actual fees are, it is imperative that clients understand this difference.
HERE ARE THE FACTS IN THE CONTRACT
1. They charge a retainer fee of 3% of a clients total Debt. This is paid out as 1% of clients debt per month for the first 3 months of enrollment.
2. They charge a maintenance fee of 29 dollars a month starting the 4th month in the program.
3. They charge a settlement fee of 15% of a clients total debt. This fee is charged on each account at the time of settlement.
4. If a client completes the program within 180 days, half of the 3% retainer will be refunded. Completion of the program after 180 days entitles client to 1/3 of the retainer fee refunded.
5. If a client completes the program, the total overall fee paid by client to New Era Debt Solutions will be 16.5% of total debt if completed within 6 months or 17% of total debt if completed after 6 months. Plus a 29 dollar a month administration fee starting on the 4th month and continuing until the completion of the program.
6. In addition, New Era Debt Solutions requires clients to set up a third party escrow account that also carries a $9.50 monthly fee and a $15.00 fee whenever settlement funds are dispersed.
HERE ARE A FEW THINGS I FOUND ON THE WEB
1. 25 complaints with the BBB (not a very large amount considering the size of the company)
2. They are currently under investigation by the New York State Attorney General.
3. New Era Debt Solutions also goes by the name DTS Financial
4. A review site misrepresenting New Era’s Settlement fee as 15% of savings as opposed to 15% of total debt.
MY THOUGHTS ON THE PROGRAM
Overall New Era Debt Solutions is not as bad as a typical debt settlement program that charges all of their fees over the first half of a program. I was not able to find a large number of complaints on the Internet which leads me to believe that they likely have a good customer service department that supports their clients and delivers the promised service. However, I am unable to recommend them at this time for 2 specific reasons.
1. Even though they charge a majority of their fees at the time a clients account is settled which is great, they charge what I would consider to be an exorbitant fee of 16.5% – 17% of a clients total debt plus a monthly fee of 38.50. (when you include the fee for their trust account) That monthly fee might not seem like a big deal, but it will easily add 1,000 to 2,000 dollars in fees over the life of the program.
Most debt settlement companies will charge a client 15% of their total debt as a fee. My personal opinion is that 15% of debt is much too high for a consumer to pay for this service. So the fact that New Era charges even more than most companies is a huge red flag for me. The more a client pays in fees, the less they have available to settle their debts with creditors and the longer a program must be stretched out in order to fund settlements. So these high fees put consumers at a greater risk for an account to go into litigation.
2. Clients seemed to be misinformed of the actual cost of the program. Explaining the pros and cons of debt settlement, and telling the client the specific costs of a program are one of the most important things that must be done. Clients are unable to make educated financial decisions for themselves if they are misinformed and not clear on the facts.
Had I only spoken to 1 or 2 consumers that had confusion over the fee structure of New Era Debt Solutions, I would have figured one of their representatives just wasn’t doing a good job. However, when I read a copy of the contract that New Era sends out, I could see how a client might easily assume the 15% settlement fee is based on the savings. If they were given this impression over the phone by a sales rep, the contract does not do a good job of correcting the misunderstanding.
As a final note about the confusion, I was very disturbed to come across a debt settlement review site that was praising New Era Debt Solutions for only charging a fee of 15% of what they saved a client. The entire review was based on the false assumption that New Era charged half of what the average settlement company charges, even though in reality they charge much more than most programs.
Now, these review sites are a dime a dozen and I normally would not have paid attention, however, the very first comment of the review was someone claiming to be Dan Smith – the president of New Era Debt Solutions. He came on praising the reviewer for such a great and ACCURATE review, even though the review was clearly a misrepresentation. Here is a copy of the actual review, the comment supposedly left by Dan Smith, and a reply comment from me.
*************************************************************************************************************************************
Setup Fee: 3%
Monthly Fee: $29
Settlement Fee: 15%
TASC Members: Yes
BBB Complaints: 0 (39 as DTS Financial)
In Business Since: 9/2000
New Era Debt Solutions, formerly known as DTS Financial, has a much different program structure than most debt settlement companies. They have a small setup fee (3% of your total debt amount) and a settlement fee of 15%. They also charge you $29/month after the first 90 days. Lets take a look at their fee structure compared to most other settlement companies:
With 15k of total debt, you would pay an average debt settlement company $2250 plus monthly fees. With New Era, if they settle your accounts for 50% (industry average), they are going to make $1125 from the settlement fee. This means that not only will you pay less in fees, you won’t pay them any fees until after they have done the work. This gives their company a real incentive to save you as much money as possible.
New Era Debt Solutions is an accredited member of TASC. They are one of only 12 companies nationwide to be Elite BSI certified by TASC. They also offer a money back guarantee is you are unhappy with their services.
1 Comment »
- Comment by Dan Smith
I love the idea of a web site like Debt Settlement Reviews that honestly reviews and rates Debt Settlement companies with accurate information. I, as president of New Era Debt Solutions, would love the opportunity to speak with the owner of this web site.
Thank you! Dan Smith
- · Comment by Damon Day
I am a bit perplexed by the review on this site as it is incorrect. You state that New Era only charges a fee of 15% of the savings. That is not correct. They charge a fee based on 15% of the total debt. This is a critical fact, since the point of your review is to say that they charge half of what most debt settlement companies charge. I am reading their contract and this is the line that states clearly their fee is 15% of the total debt.
“c. Settlement Fee: A fee charged each time CLIENT agrees to and/or enters into a settlement with a creditor that has been submitted by CLIENT to NEW ERA for negotiation. The fee is an amount equal to fifteen percent (15%) of the amount of each account when entered into the program (”Account Balance”).”
I understand your error because I have spoken to many consumers that have been mislead by New Era sales people to also believe that the fee is only half of what it is.
I thought it was only prudent that I bring it to your attention as I know you want to keep the integrity of your reviews.
However, what I am the most perplexed by is that Dan Smith would come on and praise the review with such a clear and significant error.
Clearly the president of New Era Debt Solutions must have noticed that this review mistakenly misrepresented the fees and claimed that their fees were half of what most companies charge. Not only does he not correct the error but he claims the review is accurate. I find that to be the most telling part of the review as it pertains to New Era. – source
*************************************************************************************************************************************
To be fair, I do not know for sure if the person who left the comment was actually Dan Smith, and I sure hope it wasn’t. However, it is clear that the reviewer was also confused about the actual fees that New Era Debt Solutions charges their clients.
In sum, while New Era Debt Solutions is on the right track by not charging a majority of their fees until they are able to settle an account for their clients, in my humble opinion, they completely missed the boat by turning around and charging even higher fees than most settlement programs that already charge too much. If New Era would cut their fees down and quickly take steps to clarify their fee structure in both their client presentation and their contracts, I think they could be a company worth consideration.
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24 Responses to “New Era Debt Solutions Review”
This review is neither honest nor ethical as you claim. It is not accurate and it demonstrates that the writer has neither the knowledge nor the integrity that he claims to have. If Damon Day’s approach to building his business is by making false implications and slamming other companies, he is in for a very rude awakening. Those who live by the sword die by the sword.
Damon should either talk to the executives at New Era and get his story right, or he should take it down immediately.
Dan Smith –
President
New Era Debt Solutions
Hello Dan,
As my assistant told your partner today, if you feel that any part of my review is not accurate, please let me know which part is factually inaccurate and I will make sure to correct it. On Friday your partner said my review was fair, now you are claiming it isn’t honest or ethical? Please let me know which part isn’t honest, and what is unethical about explaining a contract and helping consumers make educated decisions about their financial future. Did I misinterpret your contract somewhere?
As far as my business, I am in the business of educating consumers. The point of this review was to clarify your fee structure for consumers that were considering hiring your company to assist them in a debt settlement process. You claim I am making false implications and slamming your company. I am simply laying out the facts in your contract. Again, you are more than welcome to explain anything that I have addressed in my review and help me to “get my story right.”
I welcome your response.
Damon Day´s last blog ..TASC – Just Another Marketing Gimmick
I read the comment first before your article and I had to laugh. Dan Smith’s comment didn’t even try to disprove any of your points. Anyway, the message I got after reading your article was actually positive towards New Era Debt Solutions so the harsh comment wasn’t necessary.
Damon has never spoken to my partner. Damon has dodged every attempt to speak with him.
Damon has not returned calls nor has he replyed to emails we’ve sent that disprove his points.
Damon’s conclusion that I somehow praise a review that was clearly a misrepresentation is not true whatsover. Damon’s comments about our contract being unclear about settlement fees are not true.
This is directly from our paperwork. This is very clear to most everybody, but if Damon can’t understand it then I will listen to his recommendation to clear it up.
“Settlement Fee: A fee charged each time CLIENT agrees to and/or enters into a settlement with a creditor that has been submitted by CLIENT to NEW ERA for negotiation. The fee is an amount equal to fifteen percent (15%) of the amount of each account when entered into the program (“Account Balance”). If there is no savings from the Account Balance, then there is no settlement fee.”
Also in the paperwork there is a chart with the line below
“Settlement Fee 15% of Account Balance Payable at time of settlement”
Damon says our fees are high. Again that is not true. New Era has settled more debt per client than any other company in the country and we have saved our clients more money on average than any other company. To date we have settled over $140,000,000 of debt for our clients.
Damon, how much debt have you settled for your clients?
What was your average settlement percentage?
What are your fees?
How long have you been in the debt settlement business?
What licenses or certifications do you have?
Please give us some of your honest, ethical, straightforward, and unbiased answers you proclaim.
Thank you, Dan Smith
Hey Dan,
I do appreciate you coming on to tell me your side of the story. So from what I understand, you agree that my facts are correct but you disagree with my conclusions based on the facts. Honestly Dan, unless I was telling consumers that you were the best company on the planet, I don’t think any owner would agree with my opinion or conclusions that said their company missed the boat on a few points.
So let me clarify why I have drawn my conclusions based on the facts presented and why I continue to stick by my constructive criticism that your fees are higher than most programs and the presentation of your fee structure can be very confusing to clients.
First let me clear up the first point you made about me dodging your calls.
You are correct, I have never spoken to you or your partner, nor did I ever claim that I did. I have not dodged every attempt to speak with you. As a courtesy, I set some time aside to speak with both you and Alex on Monday 2/8/2010. I called you at 12:00 PST for our appointment and left a message. Unfortunately I found out later that my assistant had made a mistake and the call should have been at 2PM. I apologize for the scheduling error.
My days are usually booked ahead of time and unfortunately I did not have additional time left on Monday. In my phone message to you, I again asked you to email me any Factual issues that you felt were not true, and why, so I could review them and discuss them with you. Once I did, we could reschedule the call.
Within an hour of my phone message to you, and before I had a chance to respond to your email your partner Alex called and grilled my assistant for the second time about why I was not available to speak with you at that very moment. He was asking questions about who I was, what I did, where I was located, how I got paid etc.
Well something like that would give any reasonable person pause. What does any of that have to do with whether or not my review of New Era Debt Solutions was accurate? It started to sound more like you were just trying to figure out how to attack me since my review, although not flattering was factually correct.
Then 30 minutes later someone called from your office pretending to be a consumer looking for help with some debt. When my assistant told her to fill out a consultation form on the website, she became very rude and insisted that I speak with her now. My assistant, being the great lady she is, calmly explained that I would not be able to assist her until I understood her situation. In order for that to happen, she would have to fill out a consultation request. Perhaps you can tell Veronica or whatever her real name is, that when you are actually providing financial help to people, you do not have a call center set up, with sales people just waiting for the phone to ring, so they can sell something. You can also tell her that I don’t appreciate her being rude to my assistant and hanging up on her when she didn’t get her way. So now you are wasting my time scheduling a bogus consultation just to satisfy your curiosity about what I do.
At that point I decided, that you guys no longer deserved the courtesy of a phone call with me. You are certainly free to tell your side of the story on my blog, but I am not going to take time away from my clients to provide a favor to someone that does business the way you guys seem to do business. Within a few hours from that phone call your emails started to turn nasty and I knew I made the right decision not to further contact you by phone.
In regard to me not responding to any of your emails to disprove my points:
I am not aware that you disproved any of my points in your emails to me. However I certainly want to be fair and I can post your emails to me in their entirety here, if you would like me to do so. That way consumers can get your side of the story as well. I wouldn’t want you to feel misrepresented.
As far as my interpretation of your intent when you praised a clearly factually inaccurate review as honest and true, well, I certainly can’t comment on your intent. However you explained your intent in your email to me and I encourage people to read it to get Dan’s side of the story. The only thing I can comment on is how it looks. How it looks should be fairly obvious.
The inaccurate review has been posted for over 18 months. In that time you have posted one comment giving the impression that the review was honest and accurate. You must know that the review shows up on the first page of Google every time a consumer does a search for your company. You must know they will read that review and not know your intent was to contact the author and set him straight as you claim. They will come away from the review with the impression that it was accurate and Dan Smith – The President agrees.
Therefore when they get a copy of your contract, they could be already under the impression that your fees are half of what they are, because you appeared to claim that was correct. Do you see how your comments could mislead any consumer that reads it?
Now in sharp contrast, my review was written less than a week ago. Already you have researched me, called for information, disguised an employee as a consumer to try and figure out what I do, threatened to write your own review about me and post it everywhere, and now made two very aggressive posts claiming I am slamming your company, but not actually pointing to any incorrect facts, which I am willing to correct if they are wrong.
That is two very different approaches. You certainly had no problem claiming I was dishonest and questioning my integrity after my review has only been up for 3 days. The other review that is clearly factually wrong and grossly misleading and damaging to consumers, but written in your favor, has been up for 18 months, you are aware of it, yet, you never made these comments on that site. Please explain why.
I can’t comment on your motivations so I will let consumers figure out why you have taken two completely different approaches in how you deal with these reviews.
To address your point about how to make your contract more clear so that even “people like me” could understand it:
Here is a thought, why don’t you give an actual example with figures? You know, just like the bogus review did to incorrectly state that your fees are half. Here is what you should do:
When you send the contract to a potential client, actually give them a numerical example using the amount of debt they actually have. Let’s use the same example that the review did and see what your fees would really come out to be. Say a consumer had 15,000 in debt. Here are the fees:
450 retainer
2250 settlement fee
29 a month, on 36 month program =957 (33 monthly payments) (more if your plan is 48 months)
9.50 a month fee for trust account on a 36 month program = 342
So, if a consumer enrolls in your program with 15,000 in debt they will pay $3999
However, if they complete the program, you will refund 150 cold hard cash. (1/3 of the 450 retainer)
So your total fees are $3849
That is a total of 26% of the client’s current debt.
That should clear it up for people, don’t you think? This way if someone actually reads that bogus review on the first page of google, this contract will clearly let them know that your fees are really going to be higher than that. Of course if your service is worth what you are charging, there should not be a problem. If my figures are wrong here please let me know and I will be sure to correct them. I can also post your contract here if you would like me to, so consumers can understand what we are talking about.
Now in contrast, the bogus review claims in the exact same example that your fees for a client with 15,000 in debt would only be $1125. Can you now see why I felt it was appropriate for me to write this review and help consumers to clarify your fee structure? If you would have attacked that author with the same vigor that you are now attacking me, then I probably would have never even had a reason to write this review in the first place.
You said I make a false claim that your fees are too high? Well again that is just my opinion and of course you don’t agree with it, or you wouldn’t charge the fees that you do. Whether or not they are too high is for the consumer to decide, but unless you clearly present your fees, they do not have the ability to make an accurate assessment. Since most settlement companies would charge a client 2250 (which is still way too high in my opinion) in the example that New Era would charge 3849, I think most consumers would tend to side with me on the, “your fees might be a little high thing.”
Now you resort to smoke and mirrors.
You claim your fees are not high and then instead of explaining your fees and why they are not higher than most companies, which would refute my point, you say you have settled more debt per client than any other company in the country. What does that have to do with your fees?
Also, did you do a survey? Please tell me how you determined that you have settled more debt per client than any other company in the country. Did you call every debt settlement company in the country? Did you ask them to provide all of their internal data so that you could measure and in fact claim that you are a much better debt negotiator than anyone else is? Since debt settlement companies will not even willfully provide this information to the FTC or State Attorney Generals unless under Subpoena to do so. I have a feeling, that they wouldn’t share this information with a competitor. What do you think the odds are that if I called 10 debt settlement companies right now, every one of them would tell me that they are of course the best and get the best deals blah blah blah?
Consumers don’t care about that stuff. What they care about is how are you going to help them. What kind of service are they going to get? How much is it going to cost them? I don’t muddy up my reviews with bogus stats designed to wow a consumer but at the end of the day don’t amount to a hill of beans. Your response really proves my point that consumers cannot get straight answers and they need reviews like this to get the facts. I ask about your fees being too high and you respond that you have settled more debt per client than any other company. Dan, that doesn’t even make sense.
Next you claim to have settled 140 million dollars worth of debt.
Well Amen to that my friend. Again though, what does that have to do with your fees? Did I ever state that your company does not know how to settle debt? What is laughable is in fact what I said was you don’t have a lot of complaints that I could find which leads me to believe you have a good customer service department and provide a good service. I think if you would get out of attack the messenger mode and step back and actually read my review, you will find that not only is it factually accurate, but it is certainly fair. In fact the very first email I received from Alex, he thanked me for being “fair” in my review.
Now instead of explaining to me and my readers why you don’t consider your fees to be too high, and why your client presentation is not confusing and misleading, you instead resort to attacking me. Why address the facts when you can go after the messenger and try to create a diversion. You are hoping that I am somehow a competitor of yours so you can get in a pissing match with me and hopefully get away from the substance of the review. Ok, here are the questions that you asked me (which of course have nothing to do with my interpretation of your contract).
“Damon how much debt have you settled for clients?”
Answer – None, I am not a debt settlement company. I do not do debt settlement. I provide financial analysis and financial coaching to educate people on all of the options available for getting out of debt based on their specific financial circumstances. Unlike Debt Settlement companies that simply sell Debt Settlement, I actually help people figure out the best solution and then help them implement it. One of those services of course includes educating consumers about programs that operate in a counter intuitive manner to a consumer’s best financial interests. For instance, charging a consumer 4,000 dollars to help them settle 15,000 dollars worth of debt, could be considered by many to be counter intuitive to their best financial interests, but that’s just me I guess.
“What is your average settlement percentage?” Answer – NA, I do not perform debt settlement services.
“What are your fees?” Answer – That depends on what the client needs and what they would like to hire me to do.
“How long have you been in the debt settlement business?” Answer – I am not in the debt settlement business.
“What licenses or certifications do you have?” Answer – Certainly none pertaining to debt settlement, as I am not in that business. If you want to talk about what the different “Debt Settlement” certifications mean to consumers, I will be happy to have that discussion as well. Oh by the way does TASC know that you charge a consumer with 15,000 dollars worth of debt 26% of that debt as a fee? Do they even care? You are certified by TASC . Does that help consumers? I mean, you pay them hefty dues every month, if they knew that you were in violation of one of their recommended guidelines would they kick you out? Last I checked TASC “suggests” that you shouldn’t charge a consumer more than 20% of their debt as a fee. Oops.
Those are the honest, ethical, straightforward, and unbiased answers you requested.
Feel free to respond.
Damon Day´s last blog ..TARF – The Association of Red Foxes
A couple more questions Damon.
Your web site is confusing. You talk about recommending debt settlement companies to people, which would make you a lead generation company. You also make statements about your clients and your customers, which would make you a debt settlement company. Are you a lead generation company, a debt settlement company, or something else? Where do you make your money and how do you get paid?
Hey Dan,
You know, I think people are starting to realize why I chose not to take time out of my day to call you. These where the questions you were hounding my assistant to try and figure out?
Do you feel that I am somehow under the obligation to explain my business to you? Is this seriously your response to the points I made in my review? Sort of like the best Defense is a good Offense. So instead of responding, you dodge and attack.
I am not a debt settlement company or a lead generation company. I know my assistant has told your partner and your undercover employee several times, but for the record. I am a financial consultant. I do have clients, although that doesn’t make me a debt settlement company as you claim. I would have to do debt settlement to be considered a debt settlement company wouldn’t I?
Is it really so unbelievable to you that I am just a guy with an education, a lot of experience and the desire to help consumers? I know in your industry that is pretty much unheard of.
It is clear to me, that you are not going to actually address why your high fees are justified, and even more importantly why you would allow a blatantly inaccurate review to stand on the first page of google for 18 months, knowing that consumers are being misled by it. Yet so vehemently attack me after just 3 days. At this point I think the answer to that is clear.
If you would devote as much of your energy as you have spent attacking me these last few days, and figure out ways to streamline your process, cut the sales guys that are misleading clients so you can lower your fees and maybe after 18 months, give it the old college try to have the false and misleading review removed, corrected, or at least clarify your fees in your contract, you might honestly be able to help some people.
If you would like to clarify your fee structure and correct any mistakes that I have made, please feel free to do so. If you want to keep attacking me instead, well I guess you are free to do that to.
Damon Day´s last blog ..Debt Settlement USA – A Not So Glowing Review
Damon Day
In regards to your trying to paint a negative picture of New Era Debt Solutions by mentioning that New Era was 1 of the 15 companies subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General, allow me to set the record straight. Because of numerous complaints to AG offices across the country, the NYAG decided to investigate the debt settlement industry. They wanted a mix of companies to investigate. They wanted companies with lots of complaints and they wanted companies with no complaints. They picked New Era because New Era is a larger company that has been in business a long time and has no complaints. That’s right. You can call the NYAG and ask them yourselves. They have not received one complaint, none, zip, zero, nada complaints from New Era. They wanted to see what New Era was doing different from the rest of the industry.
We sent them information on the systems we have in place to ensure customer satisfaction.
We sent them our fee structure that shows we don’t get paid unless we perform for the client.
We sent them information on our record of success for our clients and the incredible savings we produce for our clients. We sent them our money back guarantees.
We sent them a bundle of client testimonials and letters of appreciation.
We told the NYAG that we appreciated the opportunity to demonstrate to them what we consider should be the model for the debt settlement industry.
Dan Smith President New Era Debt Solutions
Hey Dan,
I am glad I was able to provide you a forum in which you could tell consumers the issue with the New York AG. I know that was big news and I am sure a lot of consumers were worried about working with a company on that list. So here I did you a favor and you are claiming that I painted you in a negative light. I did nothing of the sort, I mentioned it in the things I found on the web. It was a fact. I didn’t say that you shouldn’t do business with New Era because they were being investigated. In fact if you read my article about the companies being investigated I was very clear to point out that this was just an investigation by the AG to gather information. Which was 100% true as you have verified.
Dan, I really think if you stepped back and read my review as an objective person and not the owner of the company, you will see that my review was actually written in a way that gave your company the benefit of the doubt whenever I could.
Did you see the part where I said that you guys did not charge a majority of your fees until you reached a settlement. Did you see I was providing you praise for that? Most companies charge all of their fees upfront which is terrible for the consumer. You however, do not charge a majority of your fees until a settlement is reached. That is both fair for the client and the creditor. I specifically pointed that out to consumers. I said my opinion is that your fee is high, but at least you charge it when results are obtained. Did you see any of that?
Did you notice that I said that the number of complaints on the BBB about your company was only 25 and I thought that was a low number given the size of your company? Did you notice I didn’t put that your BBB rating was an F. If my intent was to paint you in a negative light as you claim, I would have done that, don’t you think? However we both know that the BBB ratings of Debt settlement companies are very biased, but consumers usually do not.
Did you notice that after I expressed disbelief that you would go on and praise an inaccurate review as being accurate, I said that I didn’t know if that was really Dan Smith or not? Again, giving you the benefit of the doubt, calling it like I see it but not indulging for the sake of attacking you. And of course now providing you this forum so you can explain to consumers what your true intentions were behind writing that comment the way that you did. Again, I am doing you a favor and allowing you to explain things that consumers will find on the web when researching your company.
Did you see at the end of my review that other than my two main critiques about your fees and the presentation of them, I thought you could be a company worth consideration if you addressed those points?
I see my review more like constructive criticism on things that I think you can improve on to better help consumers, and you go after me for it. The funny thing is, based on your track record, I would have considered recommending clients look at your program as one to research if they were in need of settlement services. Of course I would want you to lower the fees before I did that.
However, based on how you have reacted to my review and threatened to go after me personally, I think it is fair to say that there are now other reasons why I would not feel comfortable recommending your program to consumers.
Damon Day´s last blog ..Debt Relief USA files Bankruptcy – Clients get Burned
Alright Damon, let’s have a discussion about fees.
I believe, unlike most debt settlement companies, that fees must be earned.
As you know most debt settlement companies charge their fees before the work is done.
I don’t believe that is a good business practice regardless of the type of business.
I mean if I was getting bids to paint my house and one guy says he will do it for a cheaper price but he wants all of his money up front, would I ever hire that guy? Never! Whoever I hire would get a small deposit up front to get started, and the rest of his money would be paid as the work gets done and I’m satisfied. This is a major area that differentiates New Era Debt Solutions from the rest of the industry. New Era charges a small deposit up front to get started, but the majority of the fees are not charged until the work is done, the fee has been earned, and the client is satisfied.
Now let’s talk about the amount of the fees charged. Here I want to make a couple of points and I’m also going to ask you to rethink your questions regarding fees. I think most people are asking the wrong questions when it comes to fees.
Let’s first talk about those guys out there that claim to be the cheapest. I know more than anybody how much people are struggling financially today. I hear stories every day that tug at the heart strings. I know how important it is for people to try to save every penny and every dime that they possibly can. I know how tough it is. And I also know how tempting it is to go with the guy that claims to be the cheapest and have the lowest fees. People are hoping and praying that someway and somehow this cheaper company is going to be able to provide the same level of service and get the same results. It’s not going to happen.
I know its cliché and everybody has heard this a million times but it’s true. “You get what you pay for”. It’s sad but most of the people that go with these companies because of the lower fees will end up with no service, no results, and find themselves in worst shape than they were in to start with. They will have paid in a lot of money that went to the company’s fees and have absolutely nothing to show for it except more debt and more problems.
Whenever anybody is shopping for a debt settlement company, or for any other product or service for that matter, there are always three factors that come into play. They are price, quality, and service. This is important for people to understand – If your goal is to always get the cheapest price, either the quality of the product or the level of service will have to give.
Our goal at New Era is to provide a high quality product and a high level of service at a very fair price. Our goal has never been to be the cheapest, and we don’t want to be the cheapest. Our goal is to be the best.
Now here is where I’m going to ask you to rethink your questions regarding fees. People are asking the wrong questions and I’ll show you what I mean. Currently an average client of ours has $40,000 of credit card debt. For illustration sake we’ll use the names Mr. Smith, Mrs. Jones, and Ms. Brown that each came into their debt settlement program with $40,000 in debt. They each used a different company and at the end of some time they were all finished with their programs.
Mr. Smith used company A and ended his program having paid a total of $32,000 including fees.
Mrs. Jones used company B and ended her program having paid a total of $28,000 including fees.
Ms. Brown used company C and ended her program having paid a total of $24,000 including fees.
Which client came out ahead? The obvious answer is that Ms. Brown came out ahead having saved much more money that the other two.
Next question – Which company had the highest fees, company A, B, or C? You need to think about this question for a minute and then you will realize that it is impossible to tell which company had the highest fee structure. In fact you will even realize that it doesn’t even matter.
The only thing that matters is the final result.
Some people might answer that company A had the highest fee structure because the client paid more. The answer would be wrong and in fact company A had the lowest fee structure.
Company A settled the $40,000 of debt for $28,800, charged 8% in fees, and Mr. Smith paid $32,000.
Company B settled the $40,000 of debt for $23,200, charged 12% in fees, and Mrs. Jones paid $28,000.
Company C settled the $40,000 of debt for $17,600, charged 16% in fees, and Ms. Brown paid $24,000.
Company C had the highest fees yet the client saved the most amount of money.
It’s kind of a dumb question, but if you had $40,000 in credit card debt would you rather pay $32,000, $28,000, or $24,000? The answer is obvious. Isn’t the final result what really matters?
The next question somebody might ask in looking at this illustration is whether different settlement companies get different results when it comes to settlement percentages. It is absolutely true. This is where experience, expertise, and relationship building come into play.
New Era has the experience, expertise, and the relationships in place that consistently provide the best settlement results for their clients.
When reviewing a company the questions that should be asked are “What kind of results are you getting for your clients? What is the client going to end up spending including fees? What are your settlement averages and how much will the client end up spending? How much debt have you settled on your client’s behalf?
These are the questions that really matter. Fee percentages don’t tell the story. Client’s total savings tell the story. Client’s satisfaction tells the story. Client’s testimonials tell the story.
Please take a few minutes and listen to some of our clients on our web site neweradebtsolutions.com. This is the bottom line.
Dan Smith President New Era Debt Solutions
Hey Dan,
Thanks for coming on to explain the fees. I agree with pretty much everything you are saying except for the fact that I find fault in your assumptions and they are too narrow in scope. Given your assumptions, I of course would agree with you, that your program makes the most financial sense. However you didn’t leave room for the possibility of company D.
What if Company D also saved your 40,000 dollar client the same 17,600 but only charged their clients 10% of their debt. Well, then the total overall debt paid back including fees is only 21,600. So by your reasoning, then the answer is as you say obvious. Company D would be the best because as you say, after all, isn’t the final result the only thing that matters?
Now this review is not intended to be a pissing match about who is the best company. I still contend that you can lower your fees and provide the same results. I know this because there are other companies out there that provide the same level of service that you do, generate the same settlement averages for their clients, and charge less money. However, you excluded that possibility from your example as if it doesn’t exist.
Your example is very misleading and I sure hope you just made that up on the fly and do not actually use it in a sales pitch to consumers to explain why your service is the best overall value.
In your example you set the parameters to make sure that your program will come out on top. I understand that, all companies set parameters when doing comparisons to make sure their companies are the clear choice. I don’t fault you for that. Of course now you can understand why I provide these reviews for consumers.
Your assumption is that somehow the fee charged is related to the settlement achieved. Can you please tell me where you are getting the data that shows if a company charges less fees, the creditors will not settle as low as they would if you charged more? Also, you used a settlement average of 70% for the company that charged half of what you charged? Are you suggesting that if a company charges half of what you charge then it means they are only going to be able to settle a client’s debt for 70%?
You and I both know that settlement is not rocket science. It is a combination of skill, knowledge, experience, relationships, client situation, creditor participation and even some luck. How much you charge a client to put those skills to work has absolutely nothing to do with the result. Again, providing that the company is honest, has a good track record, possesses the skills needed to get the job done, and does what they say they are going to do for the client.
Now I am certainly not saying that every company that charges less than you is better. You and I know that most debt settlement companies, I think it is safe to say at least 95% of them, are bogus and bad news for consumers. Again, I think your program is up there with some of the better ones as I have maintained this whole time. However, I also maintain that you are one of the more expensive better programs out there.
That being said, as long as your contract is clear, a consumer is presented with all of their options and they are fine with paying your fee for the service that you are providing, I have no problem with that.
You are operating under the assumption that less revenue means less money for service, which means worse settlements. You claim that anyone that charges less money than you will be unable to provide the same level of service. I hold that your assumption is faulty and let me tell you why.
You can break a debt settlement company into basically 3 avenues for revenue to flow. You have client acquisition (sales/marketing), service and profit. Of course there are a lot of other expenses, but they can all fall under one of these three broad categories. Now when you stated you can’t just look at the fees, you were correct, you have to look at the allocation of those fees (revenues).
For instance Company A Charges a client with 40K in debt 6,000 as a fee. They may spend 50% of their revenue on sales (many settlement companies spend even more), 20% set aside for profit and only 30% for service.
Now company B only charges a client with 40K in debt 4,000 as a fee. However they only spend 25% of their revenue on sales, 10% for profit and 65% on service.
Who is spending more money on servicing the clients?
Company A charges 6,000 but only 1800 of it is allocated to service the client for the life of the program.
Company B charges only 4,000 but 2600 goes to actually service the client. So even though a client saved 2,000 in fees, he actually had more money allocated for the service he was going to receive.
Now, I know this is only a simple example, and I am not pretending to know how you allocate your revenues at New Era Debt Solutions. How a company allocates its revenue is more important and a much better measure of potential service. So from the beginning, my point has been that somehow other companies have found a way to allocate their resources in a more optimal way that provides the same level of service, with the same results for less money. That is all I am saying.
If you look at sales and profit, you may be able to find some room for cost cutting. As we all know, in the end, the client pays for everything, and every little bit helps.
Damon Day´s last blog ..TASC – Just Another Marketing Gimmick
Hey Damon,
Thank you for saying that you think New Era is one of the better settlement companies out there.
I really appreciate the fact that you would say that.
I understand that you think our fees may be a little high and I certainly respect your opinion.
Of course you and I disagree about this and other things, but it is also ok to agree to disagree.
The intent of my prior illustration with companies A, B, and C was not to put New Era as either one, but to hopefuly demonstrate the importance of looking at the final result. New Era may be company A, B, C, or D. If people only look at fees they may get hurt. I know that you and I do agree on one thing and that is that although fees are an important factor of any debt settlement company choice, there are numerous other important factors that must be considered as well.
I have really enjoyed this exchange with you.
You are more than welcome to come visit our facilities in Camarillo. I would enjoy meeting you in person. I have spent a lot of your time and I appreciate it and it’s time to move on.
I wish you the best!
Dan Smith President New Era Debt Solutions
Hello Dan,
Not a problem, I have maintained this entire time that I thought you had a good program, just had a few disagreements with a few things. And as you say it is certainly ok to agree to disagree on those points. It was a spirited discussion and I appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts on the issues that I raised.
Hi Damon,
My name is Amy and I have worked for New Era Debt Solutions for the past two and a half years. First of all, let me say, I come in peace. Also, I am writing you on my own, without the knowledge of my superiors. They have told us to forget about all of this, but I could not help but feel compelled to clear up some of your questions or concerns about our company and to also address different comments that you have made. Do know that I mean the upmost respect and I don’t plan on getting in a spitting match or anything, I just want to clear some things up. you have said in your blog that you felt “attacked” by Dan Smith’s correspondence to you, but you must understand the passion that he has for this company and what we do for our clients. If someone took the one thing in the world that you were most passionate about and stepped all over it, how would you feel and react? At New Era we are all passionate about what we do because we are one of the very few ethical debt settlement companies out there in a sea of sharks and we do what is right for our clients and help our clients improve their lives by becoming debt free. You will never meet anyone as passionate about what they do as Dan Smith, and any employee of our company for that matter including me. He has put his whole life and heart into this and he has many times gone above and beyond to help our clients in ways that you don’t know.
I personally have had my best friend for the past 20 years and her fiancée that I have known for 5 years, as well as her mother who I have known as long as her, and even recently my own parents join our program. I would not have done that if I didn’t know for a fact that we do what we say we are going to do for our clients and that we do a great job at it and that we are the most ethical and moral debt settlement company out there. You may think that you know a lot about the debt settlement industry, and I believe that you know a decent amount, but I doubt you have seen and heard the stories from clients of what the unethical debt settlement companies out there have done to them and their lives. I know that you are there to review contracts, but the contracts only tell you so much, there is much more beyond just the fine print and until a person has worked in this industry, I do not believe that an outsider has any right to judge our company, our policies, and what we do.
On a positive note, there is some good information on your website in regards to consumer’s options and such and I also would like to acknowledge the positive comments that you had to say about our company such as your comment on our good customer service. However there is much information that I do not agree with and I would like to kindly address those things with you.
Your comment: “They are currently under investigation by the New York State Attorney General” and your statement “pointing to incorrect facts, which I am willing to correct if they are wrong”
My response: Dan Smith cleared up the whole Attorney General situation for you so I would expect that if you truly wanted to provide accurate information to the consumers, that you would remove that from your section “Here are a few things I found on the web” as you had state that you would do if the information was wrong.
In regards to our fees: I will happy to explain why our fees are higher. As you have said, most companies charge all of their fees upfront, meaning for example they get a clients full first five payments then half of their next ten payments or something along those lines. Most of those companies also don’t intend on settling client’s debt, they just want to sign people up because that is how they make their money and that is how people get ripped off. These “front end” loaded companies can afford to charge such a low amount because they are getting all of that money for free, regardless if they settle the clients debt or not. I have often even seen these companies make their fees as low as 8%, just to seduce the consumers into signing up with them and in the end, they generally do not settle any of their debt. In regards to our fees, with all due respect, you said that you do not work in the debt settlement industry, so how can you accurately assess exactly what expenses go into settling client’s debt and maintaining their accounts and running a debt settlement company? Are you just stating that our fees are higher based off of the smaller amounts that other debt settlement companies charge such as the companies that I listed above? Please explain what your opinion is based off of. New Era Debt Solutions and the very few other debt settlement companies that don’t charge the majority of their fees until after the debt is settled all have higher fees (do the research, their fees are all similar to ours) than the “front end” loaded debt settlement companies. It isn’t because that the very few of us that there are conspired to have it that way, it is because there are many different expenses that go into maintaining a clients account and assisting the clients and settling their debt. The clients get what they pay for. If a client wants to pay a settlement company 8% upfront and they get no results because of it, that’s because they thought cheaper, is better which it often isn’t. Where at New Era, the client not only gets “a good customer service department that supports their clients and delivers the promised service” as you had said, they get a very hard working negotiator that will do anything in their power to get the clients the best settlements possible. Do you know why that is? It is because unlike most of the debt settlement companies out there that have their sales departments on commission, here, we are on salary and here to offer honest answers and advice to clients. The only ones here on commission is our negotiators and they earn that based off of what they save clients so they have the most motivation of any negotiators out there to save the clients the most money. As I had asked above, I would really like to know what your opinion of our fees being to high are based off of when you have never worked in this industry and really don’t know the ins and outs of it.
Your comment: “I have spoken to many consumers that have been mislead by New Era sales people to also believe that the fee is only half of what it is” and “cut the sales guys that are misleading clients”
My response: I am a New Era “salesperson” and I personally nor have heard any of my coworkers misrepresent clients to our fees. I have been here over two years, and we have no reason to misrepresent what our fee is. None of us in “sales” is on commission. We get paid the same regardless if clients sign up or not. All of our phone calls are recorded here, so I would love to know exactly which clients have said that, so that we can pull the phone calls. If an employee did misrepresent a client, then they need to be reprimanded. But Damon, have you thought of this scenario: Keep in mind that these clients generally do not just “shop” our company, they usually talk to several different debt settlement companies. Have you thought of the fact that maybe they got us confused with another company? That often happens. I have had clients say “I don’t like that you get my first 5 payments” then after talking with them a bit, they realize that it was another company that had those fees. Even today my manager was talking to a client that kept saying “Joe told me that there is no fees upfront”. We have no Joe in “sales”. Once again, the client realized that he got us confused with another company. To state that our “salespeople” mislead clients without any proof of it is slander and would consider that “incorrect facts” until you actually have evidence of that occurring. As I said, if you can get me those client names, I would be happy to have them pull the phone calls to verify your client’s claims.
Your comment: Furthermore, on the above note and you saying in your blog that “why don’t you give an actual example with figures?”
My response: And I often do give exact examples with figures. I have it set up as an e-mail template and at a client’s request (which I often get) or if I feel that a client is confused about the fees, I pull out the calculator and do the math giving them an exact break down. It is not in our paperwork for the fact that each client’s situation is different and some need to make a lesser payment and others speed up the program with making a larger monthly payment. Debt settlement is not a “cookie cutter” program and is different with each client’s situation so to put a breakdown based on a perfect situation I believe would cause confusion for the clients making different payments than the minimums. But as I said above, at a client’s request, we are always happy to give a breakdown of our fees and when they are taken.
In regards to us trying to find out information about you and the service that you offer: That is true, but not because we are “just trying to figure out how to attack” you since your review. You must understand and I mean this with all due respect, but your blog about us and this whole situation, is just like a bee buzzing by. We have never had a single client mention your name or your website and as far as I know we have not lost any clients because of it. By the way, we do not have a Veronica that works here. The only reason this became of anything is because someone we know came across your website. Let me explain why we searched for information on you. There are many “debt settlement blog websites” out there and in most cases their reviews are biased because they have ulterior motives. One such website is a “lead generation company” that only will say good things about the companies that are willing to pay money to buy consumers contact information from them. We do not want to buy leads from them, so they speak badly about us, even though every month they still try to contact us to buy leads from them. We will not pay off a company just to say good things about us; we would rather help make the public aware of such shady websites. Or other websites may talk bad about debt settlement companies because they are trying to sell their own “do it yourself program”. So see Damon, that is the only reason we were trying to find out information about you and the services that you offer.
In regards to Dan Smith’s comment on that one review site: You are reading way too into that and putting way too much dramatic emphasis on a simple mistake. I would put it on my life that he was not trying to mislead anyone. There is no doubt in my mind. My guess is that he just read it wrong. We all make mistakes. And the fact that it has been posted for 18 months and that we haven’t made any other comments to correct it, we do not sit there and just surf the internet all day and stare at blogs. We have much better things to do, like helping people get out of debt. Just because we came across it once, doesn’t mean that we go back and visit it everyday.
I hope that this information has cleared some things up and answered some of your unanswered questions. I really would love for you to come in to our office for a week and see what we really do and I know that you would have a completely changed opinion of our company and what we do. I have never been this passionate and believed in so much any other company that I have ever worked for. We are the good guys and we do the right thing. That is why I wanted to correct inaccurate information and naive opinions because what you don’t realize, while saying negative things about a company that actually helps people, you could be driving the consumers that you so dearly care about into the arms of a company that is just there to make a quick buck off of people in a desperate situation.
Hello Amy,
I appreciate you coming on to share your thoughts, although, if your superiors asked you not to do it, I would think they had a very good reason for doing so. It is clear that you also care about your company the people that work there and your clients. Again, most of the points you have raised I have never taken issue with and have clearly stated so numerous times. If someone read the comments before reading the review, they would think I must have written that New Era was the worst company in the world and was just out ripping people off and not providing a service.
My review was a factually accurate review, based on facts and observations, and included my opinions based on those facts and observations. Clearly you and Dan Smith do not agree with my opinions as is your right. However, the facts remain the facts.
Now, you mention that you come in peace. Perhaps you are under the impression that I am somehow at war. All I did in the review was clearly explain your contract to consumers, and make some fair observations about things that I have read regarding your company. Everything I have said since then has just been in response to the issues raised by Dan in his comments. Now you certainly seem like a very nice person and are clearly upset that I do not have the opinion that New Era is the absolute best option for consumers looking for assistance negotiating their debts. However, either knowingly or unknowingly, you did throw some slaps at me directly that I would be remiss if I didn’t address.
First, you are somehow under the assumption that I am just an outsider who reads contracts and therefore only knows a “decent” amount about settlement. Well I take this to mean that you are implying that I don’t know what I am talking about. I find it perplexing that you would read my blog and come away with the impression that I only know a “decent” amount about settlement, debt settlement companies and the industry in which they operate. Well, I of course would only leave it up to readers to decide how much I may or may not know based on my writings.
You also doubt that I have seen and heard the stories from clients that have been ripped off by debt settlement companies. Again, what gives you the impression that clients don’t come to me for help every day with these issues? Further, what does my experience in the industry or your self serving perception that I lack experience have to do with the facts or my observations of those facts?
Now you also say that as far as your office is concerned, I am just a “bee buzzing by.” That none of your clients have ever mentioned my name. I take this to mean that as far as you and your company are concerned, that I am just some small unknown person, so what I say doesn’t carry any weight.
First let me point out that you guys sure seem to be taking a lot of swats at me if I am just some “bee buzzing by”. Second, the reason that many of your clients may not be aware of me is because I don’t spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on advertising. My business is mainly built on referrals from existing clients and professionals. This way, my clients don’t have to pay higher fees so I can go out and spend a lot of money finding new clients. I just focus on helping consumers and the rest takes care of itself.
In contrast, I would say that I see more Ads for New Era than I see for any other settlement program on the web. That might have something to do with that whole revenue allocation thing I spoke about a few comments ago. If you did less advertising, your clients might not have to pay so much money to get your help. Also, again, what does this have to do with my content in the review?
Now that I have addressed that, let’s take a look at some of the issues you have raised.
You claim that I am an outsider that has no right to pass judgment on your company. Again, just because I am not a debt settlement or a lead company, why are you under the impression that I am an outsider with no knowledge or experience in the industry?
Are you saying that nobody can render an opinion about your program? After speaking to enough of your clients and potential clients that I notice a pattern of confusion and potential deception, does that give me the right to look into it? If not, then in your opinion, who would be allowed to?
You want me to remove the fact that New Era is under investigation by the New York Attorney General from my review. I said I would remove inaccurate facts. This is an accurate fact so I will not remove it. I didn’t say, tell me anything you don’t like and I will remove it. I said, tell me any facts that are not correct and I will correct them.
Do you think my blog is the only one reporting that New Era is under investigation? It has been reported on hundreds of sites. Consumers researching your company are going to find it whether or not it is on my blog. At least I have given you a forum where you can explain your side of the story. Wouldn’t you rather consumers be able to read your side of the story? Why in the world would you want me to remove it?
If I made a mistake and New Era wasn’t actually under investigation, then of course I would remove it. However, it is a fact, I listed it as a fact, without rendering any judgment or opinion on that, and then gave you a forum to tell your side of the story as to why you feel your company was targeted by the New York AG. I know you don’t see it this way, but I am really doing you a favor by leaving it up there.
As far as your fees go, I have already addressed them and presented my thoughts on your fees in a previous comment to Dan, so I will refer you back to that. However, why do you continue to insist that New Era is the only company out there that can provide good service and good results? Further, why do you think that it is impossible to provide those things and charge consumers less money than you do? You are arguing apples and oranges. You assume that all other companies are just going to rip consumers off.
You claimed that you have read my website. Is there anything in my website that would lead you to believe that I would recommend that a consumer enroll in a program that front loaded all of their fees? You only leave room for the possibility that if it isn’t your company it must be a rip off program that front loads all of their fees. I understand your passion for your company and that is great, but there are other companies out there, that I feel have better models, that allow them to provide the same or better service, settlement percentages and client satisfaction for less money than you are currently doing it for. Again I will refer you to my discussion of revenue allocation.
You claim that all other companies that don’t front load their fees all have high fees like New Era, then you challenge me to “do the research.” Well, there are other companies that do not charge clients upfront and have much lower fees than you, so on this, I will serve it back to you and suggest that instead of implying that I am just an outsider that isn’t qualified enough to know what I am talking about that you should first do the research.
Now on a more disturbing note:
Are you seriously asking me to provide you with contact information on clients that have come to me in confidence and expressed dissatisfaction with your fee structure and were looking for better alternatives? Seriously? Well I would hope that if any company came to you with the same request, you would tell them to take a hike. I am not going to divulge confidential client information just so you can reprimand your sales staff or satisfy your curiosity as to why your sales presentation is not as solid and transparent as you think it might be. Frankly I am a bit disturbed that you would even assume that I would provide that information to you.
I think I laid out a very good case as to why many consumers can be confused about your fees, starting with the inaccurate review on the first page of google whenever you do a search for your company. Just do a google search for New Era Debt Solutions and you will find it right on the first page. I think it is number 3 right now.
Regarding your explanation of your fees in your contract.
I know debt settlement isn’t cookie cutter. Dan Smith asked me for a suggestion and I provided him one. I wasn’t suggesting to provide the same example to every client. I would assume you would actually put the paperwork together for each client and explain the fees as it specifically pertains to that client’s situation.
Now you admit to trying to find out information on me and claim it wasn’t to attack me. Yet then you go on to explain how companies will provide bogus reviews based on ulterior motives. So you admit to trying to find out what I do so you can figure out a way to attack or discredit me. Let me explain it very simply. If my review was factually inaccurate, you could have corrected it. I have given you an open forum to do that. I have not edited one word in any of the previous comments.
However, because you did not agree with my conclusions, but knew my facts where correct, you had to figure out another way to go after me. Hence, you are trying to figure out who I am and what I do, so you can try to discredit me as a way to remove focus from the substance of what I wrote.
You claim you don’t have a “Veronica” that works in your office. Are you claiming that nobody from your office called me pretending to be a consumer, or are you claiming that they just used a fake name when they called?
Now, you claim that you have better things to do and you don’t sit there and surf the internet all day looking for review sites. I am confused, you guys have visited my site and made comments pretty much every day for the past two weeks. You guys have let a clearly factually incorrect and misleading review sit on the first page of google for 18 months claiming you didn’t know about it, but are attacking my factually accurate, although not the most flattering review with vigor almost every day. What conclusion should I draw from that?
As a final point, you said you wanted to correct my inaccurate information and Naïve opinions. Wow, naïve opinions? I thought you said you come in peace? Well I am not sure what to say about that so I will let readers decide how naïve my opinions are. As to your point about correcting my inaccurate information, I have read your comment multiple times, and I didn’t see where you corrected my inaccurate information.
Please just state what fact was wrong and I will correct it.
Damon Day´s last blog ..New Era Debt Solutions Review
Hi Damon,
Before we part are you going to correct the areas of your review that are inaccurate like you promised? As of today I don’t see where any changes are made. I sent you a private email on February 5, 2010 that explained the inaccuracies. I never received a reply so I sent you a couple of other follow-up emails and never received replies from them either. Did you ever receive them? It seems you only respond to posts on your public domain.
If you ever find them you will notice that they are very non-threatening, friendly, courteous, and complimentary. I thought I was being extremely courteous considering the fact that you had just thrown a personal sucker punch at me.
Please allow me to explain what I mean by saying sucker punch.
As far as I know you and I have never met and we have never spoken with each other.
The first I had ever heard about Damon Day was that he had written a review about New Era Debt Solutions and in the review he implied that New Era’s President, me, was being sneaky and deceptive to attract clients. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your accusation of me was based on a review web site you found on the internet. First you say “I was very disturbed to come across a debt settlement review site that was praising New Era Debt Solutions for only charging a fee of 15% of what they saved a client.” Then you go on to say “Now, these review sites are a dime a dozen and I normally would not have paid attention, however, the very first comment of the review was someone claiming to be Dan Smith – the president of New Era Debt Solutions. He came on praising the reviewer for such a great and ACCURATE review, even though the review was clearly a misrepresentation. Here is a copy of the actual review, the comment supposedly left by Dan Smith, and a reply comment from me.”
Now here are the comments you made to whoever owns this review site:
I love the idea of a web site like Debt Settlement Reviews that honestly reviews and rates Debt Settlement companies with accurate information. I, as president of New Era Debt Solutions, would love the opportunity to speak with the owner of this web site.
Thank you! Dan Smith
• Comment by Damon Day
I am a bit perplexed by the review on this site as it is incorrect. You state that New Era only charges a fee of 15% of the savings. That is not correct. They charge a fee based on 15% of the total debt. This is a critical fact, since the point of your review is to say that they charge half of what most debt settlement companies charge. I am reading their contract and this is the line that states clearly their fee is 15% of the total debt.
“c. Settlement Fee: A fee charged each time CLIENT agrees to and/or enters into a settlement with a creditor that has been submitted by CLIENT to NEW ERA for negotiation. The fee is an amount equal to fifteen percent (15%) of the amount of each account when entered into the program (”Account Balance”).”
I understand your error because I have spoken to many consumers that have been mislead by New Era sales people to also believe that the fee is only half of what it is.
I thought it was only prudent that I bring it to your attention as I know you want to keep the integrity of your reviews.
However, what I am the most perplexed by is that Dan Smith would come on and praise the review with such a clear and significant error.
Clearly the president of New Era Debt Solutions must have noticed that this review mistakenly misrepresented the fees and claimed that their fees were half of what most companies charge. Not only does he not correct the error but he claims the review is accurate. I find that to be the most telling part of the review as it pertains to New Era.”
Here you make some assumptions of me that simply aren’t true and I will explain why. (Didn’t your mom tell you what happens when you assume things? Mom was right you know!)
First you assumed that I noticed this review that had mistakes in it. Then you say that I praised the review. Then you say that I claimed the review was accurate, Then you say that I did not correct the errors.
Your assumptions of me paint a picture of sneaky and deceptive person. Then you basically summarize everything by saying in other words “I find that the company’s President is sneaky and deceptive, and this is the most telling part”.
This my friend Damon Day is what I call a sucker punch.
Please forgive me for going into counter attack mode. It’s a human instinct that occurs right after a sucker punch is thrown. I am far from perfect and I probably shouldn’t have let this bother me, but I am only human. I’m not the best at turning the other cheek.
I had already explained to you in my prior email sent on February 5th, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt that you never received it and allow me to explain again why your assumptions are false, inaccurate, and unfair.
You seem to think this comment holds a lot of weight in your assessment where I said “I love the idea of a web site like Debt Settlement Reviews that honestly reviews and rates Debt Settlement companies with accurate information.” This statement holds true today. In fact you could even substitute your name in this comment and it would still hold true. I do love the idea of a web site that would give honest reviews. I have yet to find one. You say that you hope it wasn’t Dan Smith that wrote it but let me confirm to you today that I did write it, I’m glad I wrote it, and it still holds true today. It is not a statement that says that either Debt Settlement Reviews or Damon Day and Associates is honest and accurate in their reviews. In fact as it stands today, neither one of them are. I will work to the best of my ability with both companies to address their errors and mistakes.
Please allow me an opportunity to discuss each one of your assumptions and explain why your assumptions are false, inaccurate, and unfair. First you assumed that I noticed this review that had mistakes in it. The truth is I did not notice it whatsoever. Your review is the first I ever heard about it. Even you said in your review that these review sites are a dime a dozen. I do not track all of these web sites and unless something is brought to my attention I have no idea what is being said all the time on the internet. When I first noticed this Debt Settlement Review site that you are using to make your case against me, it was probably a couple of years ago or more. Back then when I made the comment about loving an honest and accurate review site, the content on the web site was entirely different than what is on there now. In fact back when I wrote the comment we weren’t even using a 15% fee structure. So what that means is that the owner of that site went in at some point and changed the content and he made a mistake in his math. This person, believe it or not, never called me to tell me that he was changing the content, nor did he ask me to verify its accuracy. He may have changed the content numerous times for all I know. For you Damon to try and tell the world that I somehow endorsed this site and its content is just not fair of you, nor is it accurate.
Then you say I praised the review. First of all in my comment there is no praise for any site. All I said was that I love the idea of an honest and accurate review site. Nor did I praise the content of any site. Like I said before the content in that site is not even the same as it was way back then.
Then you say that I claimed the review was accurate. Again this is not true for the same reasons as before. Nowhere did I say anything was accurate. All I said was that I love the idea of an honest and accurate review site.
Then you say that I did not correct the errors. Boy don’t I wish I had the power to do that!!!
I no more have the power to correct the mistakes in that web site than I have the power to correct the errors in yours. All I can do is contact the owner of the site and ask them to correct the errors and hope that they do. Believe me when I tell you that I understand how people can get confused when they get misinformation on some random review site on the internet. Now that you made me aware of the errors in the other review I will try my best to contact them and get the errors corrected. Thank you for making me aware. A simple phone call would have been a lot easier. Right now I am contacting you and asking you nicely to correct the mistakes that are in your web site.
There are other areas to that need to be cleaned up as well but instead of discussing them here in this public forum, why don’t we start over, get out of attack mode, and have a discussion about your areas of concern. I would be happy to open myself and my company up to you. Despite what my wife might say, I’m not that bad of a guy and I’m easy to talk to.
If you are truly sincere about writing an honest and accurate review, and I think you are, then let’s get together and do it right. This is me, Dan Smith, holding out his hand of reconciliation and inviting you to call me or visit me and together we make this whole situation a whole lot better for us all and for our clients.
I hope you accept my invitation, sincerely.
Dan Smith
Hey Dan,
I thought we were going to agree to disagree on this? You haven’t noticed any changes in my review because my review didn’t contain anything that was factually inaccurate, and you have had an open forum to explain why you disagreed with my opinions.
Everything boils down to one thing. You are unhappy that I found a review on the first page of Google when searching for New Era, that grossly misrepresents your fee structure and then includes a comment, admittedly made by you, that would give almost any reader the clear impression that you were thanking the author for such an honest and accurate review.
There is a theory called Occam’s Razor. It can be applied many different ways, but one of the applications holds that The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations.
Now, when I saw the review with your comment, I was at a loss to figure out any other possible explanation for it other than what it looked like. What it looked like to me was, you read the review, you knew it was wrong, but it was in your favor and would get more people to call your company for help, so you may have figured you were a decent company anyway and once a consumer was on the phone with your sales people, you could sign them up and justify the fees later. So it was wrong but you figured the ends justified the means. Again to be clear, that is simply what it looks like. I am not claiming that I know your intentions.
The only person that will ever know your true intention is you. So I wrote a review, I pointed to this review and I made an observation saying that I was disturbed to see this. Then I provided you an open forum to provide any other possible explanation for your actions.
You asked about an email you sent me on Feb 5th. I did go back and find it. Yes you were right, you were very nice and cordial to me in that email. Your emails didn’t turn nasty and threatening to me until Feb 8th. In that email you tell me what your true intentions were for making that comment. You claim that you read the review, knew it was inaccurate and made that comment and asked the author to contact you so you could correct his mistakes. You claim that when you were talking about honest and accurate reviews you were only speaking in general terms and not specifically claiming the review you were commenting on was either of those things.
So now I have to admit, I am really scratching my head. Why in the world would you ask me to go locate this email that has a completely different explanation then what you are telling me now? So last week your story was that you knew about the review and made those comments knowing the review was not accurate and wanting to contact the author to fix the error.
Now you are telling me that actually no, the review must have been different and accurate when you made that comment and sometime after you made the comment the author went in and changed the review to make it inaccurate and even though it has been on the first page of Google all this time, you didn’t even know about it until I brought it up.
Then you go on to say in this comment that you didn’t say the review was accurate, again you were only speaking in general terms. So which is it? Was the review inaccurate when you made the comment and you were only speaking in general terms about honesty and accuracy, or was the review different and accurate when you made the comment, only to be changed by the author at a later date to then make the review factually incorrect? You have offered two different explanations for the same event and I am now more confused than ever.
You mention you wish you had the power to correct the review. You certainly had no problem telling everyone that reads this where you thought I went wrong. Look at your first comment on my review compared to your only comment on the review incorrectly praising your company for charging half the fees of most other companies.
Now, the good news is that I have given you this open forum to correct the record, so even though you cannot reach the other author after 18 months, people will now know that your fees are not half, as that review claims. My review should really help your potential clients clear up any confusion about your fee structure.
As far as getting together with you to write an accurate review. Again, you imply that my review is not accurate. I simply reviewed your contract, made some observations based on the facts as I saw them, and then gave you an open forum to comment. In my review I didn’t take issue with anything else about your company, and in fact praised you for a few things I thought you did well.
When you first contacted me and were cordial, I was open to contacting you by phone. Then you turned nasty, threatened to attack me by writing a review of Damon Day and Associates and post it everywhere if I didn’t remove my review. Once you had your attorney contact me twice, I decided that it would not be in my best interest to speak with you privately. From my side of the fence, it looks like you simply tried to attack and bully me to take down my review. After two weeks of that not working, you then want to extend me a hand of reconciliation?
Speaking of threatening to write a review about me and posting it everywhere. An anonymous, personal attack on me has recently surfaced on Google. The author is hiding behind a blocked IP. I would like to know if you or anyone in your company is behind the personal attack? Amy claimed that your office was trying to gather personal data about me, but not to attack me. I find it a strange coincidence that this attack just recently surfaced after my review of New Era. Do you happen to know anything about that?
Hello Damon,
Are you going to correct the areas of your review that are inaccurate like you promised?
Or better yet, are we going to get together for an honest discussion?
Wouldn’t it add to the credibilty of your review if you could tell your readers that you actually took the time to visit the facilities and that you met the people that work there?
Please give me a yes or no answer right away so I can decide how to proceed.
Thank you,
Dan
Hey Dan,
Again, I understand you don’t agree with my opinion, but there is nothing factually inaccurate in my review. I have given you an open forum in the comments to let you explain the reasons behind the issues that I took exception with in my review.
As far as getting together for an honest discussion, I thought that is what we have been doing all along. Haven’t we been having an honest discussion?
As far as visiting your facility, thank you very much for the invitation, but there is no need for me to visit your facility. Again, I never took exception to your facility, or the people that work for New Era. I am sure your employees are all very nice and committed to helping consumers. I never claimed anything to the contrary.
As far as you deciding how to proceed, I am not sure I understand. I was under the impression that we agreed to disagree and end it there.
Why didn’t you reply to the friendly emails I sent to you on February 5th and the couple others I sent shortly thereafter?
Hey Dan,
I have no idea. Maybe I didn’t see the email until after your partner and employees started to try and dig up dirt to attack me personally. Maybe I took the weekend off. Maybe I figured I would respond to your questions when we spoke on the phone. Maybe I was busy assisting clients. I have no idea why I didn’t respond the same day you sent it to me.
YEA, Damon! Go get ‘em. Thanks for looking out for the consumer.
A heated discussion about very very important things. I say will have to say I think Damon won. You always give such great information in your articles.
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