IANA Financial Advisor
...nor have I had contact with any of this lot.

However, my understanding is that they will charge you a fee (I think I've heard 5-10% of the total consolidated debt balance). You'll end up with a lower interest rate, that is lower than credit card and unsecured personal loan, but higher than a standard (or possibly even sub-prime) mortgage, and the debt will be over a longer period. I don't know what the arrangements are for paying things off early, but I'd suspect they're fairly punitive.

Having said that, with rates being low at the moment, if you really need to do something like this, it might be a good time. However, you could also look into other alternatives like a loan from ZOPA (peer-to-peer lending), as a lot of the lending on there appears to be to support self-managed debt consolidation.
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Tue 11 Aug 2009, 11:06, Reply)