With the rise of the credit card economy, more and more Americans are finding it difficult to deal with mounting bills and an ever escalating debt load. As this all has happened, new industries have sprouted up to help ordinary consumers pull themselves out of the financial burdens - chief among them the debt settlement industry.

At first, the lure of borrowing small amounts of money seems innocent enough. Content in the belief that the money owed will not be a problem to pay back, and further reinforced by the initial payments towards it, we can become ever bolder, getting deeper and deeper in until we reach a point where the debt is suddenly not so easy to pay down, and just paying enough to not go further in the hole becomes a challenge.