The answer is of course yes. The first step is to get on the phone and start contacting your creditors. Simply tell them that you have reached rock bottom and will be unable to pay back the debt at all. Tell them that you have absolutely no resources and try to scare them that they would have an easier time getting blood from a stone. Tell them that you demand that they stop contacting you and that the only way you would talk to anyone is if they will take a one-time payment (of course at a reduced figure of your original debt) as a settlement. Basically, you tell them that you will make a one-time offer to them and offer them a (reasonable) cash settlement so your account with them can be closed. This may or may not work. It depends on many different factors including how much debt you have and how late you are on paying it back. If the representative is not biting on your offer, ask for a manager or call back and get a different representative and try again.

This can be nerve raking and very time consuming, not to mention embarrassing, especially if you have a lot of creditors that you owe. Many of these creditors will not be wiling to play hard ball with you and many of them will try to make your life even more of a nightmare by increasing your interest rates and putting you out for collections, which by the way will destroy your credit.

One advantage of hiring a debt settlement service is that they will take care of all of this for you and come back to you with the settlement. This way you can go on with living your day to day life and concentrate on getting back on track without having to confront these situations.

Good debt settlement companies have great tactics to convincing creditors that you won't pay them another penny if they don't accept the offer. They will have even more leverage if you are in arrears or haven't made a payment within the last 6 months or more.

If you are the type that finds negotiating difficult or it makes you uneasy then choosing a debt settlement may be the answer for you. Remember too that a professional debt negotiation company knows the appropriate steps to take and will usually get a better deal than a consumer because they have typically already established relationships with the credit card companies as well as many different various creditors.