How We Rate Debt Relief Companies
This page is the rulebook. Every review, best-of list and versus page on The Penny Brief is scored against the rubric below. If you think we got a number wrong, you can look up exactly which line it came from.
By Davis Loui - founder and publisher
Last checked: Oct 16, 2026What we look at, and how much it counts
Fees and cost transparency
What you pay, when you pay it, and whether the company states it clearly in writing before you sign. We cost three real scenarios ($10k, $20k, $40k enrolled) and publish the math.
Legal standing and licensing
State registrations and bonds where required, FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule compliance (no settlement fees before a settlement you accepted), and any enforcement history at federal or state level.
Track record and complaint handling
CFPB complaint database entries, state attorney general records, BBB accreditation, and - more important than complaint volume - how complaints get resolved.
Program structure and protections
Whether you control the savings account, whether you approve every settlement offer, what happens if you drop out, and what the contract says about lawsuits from creditors.
Customer experience
Consultation quality, support access, and whether the company educates you or just sells to you.
No company earns a PB Picks seal on one strong category. The two legal categories are pass/fail: unresolved enforcement action or upfront-fee violations means no seal, no ranking, and usually a warning page instead of a review.
Where the numbers come from
- Primary documents: actual enrollment agreements and published fee schedules, not marketing pages.
- Government records: CFPB complaint database, FTC enforcement actions, state regulator and attorney general filings.
- Accreditation bodies: ACDR and IAPDA membership, verified directly.
- Our own calls: we enroll in free consultations and ask the questions our guides say you should ask.
- Named sources on every factual claim. If a figure comes from the company itself, we say so, because self-reported settlement averages are marketing until proven otherwise.
We do not copy other review sites. If two of us disagree with a competitor's rating, fine - our work shows its receipts.
How a page gets published
Research pass
One editor gathers documents and records, and logs every source with a date.
Draft
Written to the voice rules: plain English, cons before pros, no guarantees, no fear-bait.
Fact check
Every number and legal claim verified against the primary source, not a search result.
Publisher review
Every page is read and approved against this rubric by Davis Loui, founder and publisher. Davis is a marketer, not a certified advisor, and the site does not dress him up as one. Anything outside our lane - your specific lawsuit, your specific tax bill, your credit dispute letter - gets cited to primary sources and a plain instruction to talk to a professional. What we do instead is verify what companies put in writing.
Publish
With a visible "last checked" date.
Re-check quarterly
Fees, state availability and complaint counts move; our pages move with them.
Corrections
Email editor@thepennybrief.com. If we are wrong, the fix goes on the page within 7 days and the correction gets logged at the bottom of the article, visibly. That promise is binding for this publisher: the founder of this site personally owns the correction clock.
How we make money (and what we will not do)
Some links on this site are compensation links: if you enroll through one, a partner may pay us a fee. That fee never changes a ranking. We do not sell placement, we do not accept payment for a PB Picks seal, and we will recommend a nonprofit credit counseling agency over a settlement company when your situation calls for it - even though the nonprofit pays us nothing. Full details live on our How We Make Money page.
Davis also runs Provenance Group, a company in the debt relief lead business. That relationship is on the About page, on this page, and next to every compensation link. It is exactly why the rubric above exists: a publisher with a seat at the industry table needs scoring rules the industry can check.