U.S. Trustee's Website Lists Approved Credit Counseling Agencies
The United States Trustee has compiled a list of approved credit counseling agencies pursuant to 11 U.S.C. §111. Available on its website at U.S.Trustee Program/Dept. of Justice, the list provides contact information (including website addresses) for all approved credit counseling agencies in each U.S. judicial district. StartFreshToday.com has developed a 90-minute online briefing that it is providing to a number of credit counseling agencies to facilitate administration of their briefings.
Since StartFreshToday is not a not-profit credit counseling agency, StartFreshToday will not be on the UST list, but StartFreshToday will facilitate the relationship between your client and the credit counseling agency. You can order a briefing on the site, the client can take the online briefing on the site and the certificate of completion will be posted on StartFreshToday.
If you are not the UST list do you connect assisted persons with credit counseling entities that are approved for the interview through your site? True for the Western District of Michigan? Whose certificate is issued?
D Garrett - thanks for the question. Here's how we're handling that. We developed an online, interactive 90-minute briefing to facilitate the counseling and certification process. We have coordinated a pool of reputable, independent 501 (c)(3) credit counseling agencies to quickly review your client's data and post a PDF of the credit counseling certification to your client's StartFreshToday.com sub-account.
All agencies will meet AICCCA and ISO standards and be UST approved. We are waiting until after 10/1 to determine who all is approved, and then will post the participating agencies on the site. Our agencies will be providing briefings in all 50 states (so you are covered in the Western District of Michigan).
After setting up a free client sub-account, you can purchase the briefing and schedule it immediately or for some time in the future, in the comfort of your client's home, or in your office. The briefing is pre-populated with the Means Test budget and credit report data to create a briefing that is free of inconsistencies and easy-to-use. Your client can breeze through the briefing, but can speak with a counselor at any time. A certification of completion is posted to StartFreshToday within 48 hours.
Our system also saves all of the client data and makes it available to you to facilitate petition preparation.