I would agree with helpwithdebt, just maybe a technicallity though, debt consolidation is maybe not worth the effort but counselling is hopefully to counsel the person / entity to be managing the debts of the future at a level they can manage to recover from past financial transgressions / mistakes.

Some places are worse off after consolidation because although there is a financial saving, the availbility to create debt has been increased and if it is used, you sit with a bigger problem later on.

As such a good debt counsellor would identify the possible problems and then give specialised advice.

Seems like "debt" has snowballed into such a vast category that everyones advice is correct for a specific situation, and this forum seems to have more financially responsible persons than not.

What I think does need addressing is who gets credit listed (Transuinon or Experian or there is another one). I see the people who get a salary each month without any business expenses get listed quite quickly, but those running their own business with a profit based income are listed very late and CCs and PTY LTD are listed even slower. I guess the creditors still believe a company will eventually pay anyway but an individual my not.