The short version: this site is education, not advice. Don't sue us for math you didn't check; we won't pretend our numbers are guarantees.
The Penny Brief is education. We explain how debt settlement, consolidation, and counseling work, what fees look like, and what regulators have found, so you can walk into your own decision with better information. We are not your lawyer, your accountant, or your financial advisor. Our founder is not a certified financial advisor, and this site does not pretend he is one. Nothing here is personalized advice for your situation. Two people with the same debt can face very different laws and tax results. For your exact case, take our pages to a licensed professional in your state.
Our articles belong to The Penny Brief. Read them, link to them, and share them with anyone in your family who needs the help. Please do not republish a full guide as your own work or scrape our pages to pass off as original. Teachers, journalists, and people quoting a passage for commentary or criticism are welcome: keep the article title, credit the site, and link back. Need more than a short quote? Email editor@thepennybrief.com and a human will answer permission requests directly.
Any figure you see here, a typical savings percentage, a monthly payment example, an interest rate, is an illustration built from public data and common scenarios. It is not a promise of what you will get. Your creditors set their own terms. Laws differ by state. Companies change their fees without warning. Our calculator tools will show math, not outcomes, and a real program's result depends on your accounts and your negotiator. When we write that many people see a certain result, we mean exactly that. An average is never a guarantee for you.
Debt relief is a patchwork of state rules. Licensing, fee caps, and settlement laws differ across the country. A company that operates legally in one state may not be allowed in another. Our guides flag state specifics where we know them, but no small site can promise current, complete rules for all fifty. Before you sign anything, check your own state. Your attorney general or state financial regulator can tell you whether a company is licensed there, and the FTC and CFPB databases show how it behaves. We use those sources ourselves, and you can too.
We will update these terms as the site grows. When a version changes, the new terms apply to visits after that change, and we will not rewrite history and claim the old rules still govern. Substantive changes get a note on this page, not just a silent edit. This is a plain site, so there is no 'I agree' button to click. By using The Penny Brief you accept the current terms on this page, so please read them once before you rely on anything here.