I just finished a day long seminar on the alternatives to bankruptcy.  It was put on by a local company that offers a debt negotiation program to help those people who are at risk of going bankrupt.

They started off the presentation with the numbers: the number of people that go bankrupt each day and the number of people that could avoid bankruptcy if they just got some credit and bill consolidation help.

They continued on how debt consolidation works and what as the consumer we should look for.  They also touched on how your credit score is affected by both debt consolidation and bankruptcy.

I must say the arguments for debt consolidation are strong as you don’t suffer the effects that you would if you went bankrupt.  Also, personally, I feel that even though you weren’t able to pay off all your debts at least you tried - unlike someone who went bankrupt and basically said "screw you" to their lenders - I couldn’t live with that.

They finished their presentation by detailing their credit card negotiation services and how they could help us if we had credit card debt problems.  All in all, I quite enjoyed the seminar - it was both thought provoking and informative.