Have you actually called one of those debt consultants, and had them say to you “you need to hire us, and pay us a lot of money, because we only work for you; a bankruptcy trustee works for your creditors! They don’t care about you!”

Is that true?

You have debts, and you want to solve your debts without filing bankruptcy, but you’ve heard that a consumer proposal is just as bad as bankruptcy?

Is that true?

There are a lot of debt myths out there, and whenever I meet with anyone who has questions about these myths, I take the time to explain what’s true, and what isn’t.

Doug Hoyes in the 570 News studios

Unfortunately I can only meet with one person at a time, so it’s hard to dispel all of these myths.

I need a wider audience, and this Saturday I’ll have one.

I’m pleased to announce something new: for the first time ever, we’ll be doing a one hour live radio show that will be broadcast on the radio, and on the internet on video!

That’s right, you can “see us on the radio”.

On Saturday September 24 from 1:05 pm to 2:00 pm Ted Michalos and Doug Hoyes will be appearing live on 570 News, and we’re going to spend the entire hour talking about Debt Myths.

You can participate in many ways. You can:

• Listen on the radio to 570 News;
• Listen on the internet, at 570News.com (just click the Listen Live button);
• Watch and listen to the video feed; go to 570News.com and click on the 570 News Webcast link;
• During the show you can e-mail us a question, and my office will relay it to the studio; or
• Send me a Tweet on Twitter @doughoyes and I’ll try to respond on air, time permitting.

If you want to learn more about how to deal with debt (or if you’re just curious to see what it looks like to “watch” a radio show), please join us this Saturday after the 1:00 pm news on 570 News for our inside look at Debts Myths.

I pleased to report that Ted Michalos and Douglas Hoyes actually exist. We are real people, and we both meet with dozens of people in person each week, and we talk to many more on the phone each day. We started Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. back in 1999, and we both remain the owners of the firm, and actively involved in the business on a daily basis.

Why does it matter to you that there is actually a Hoyes and a Michalos?

It matters because if you decide to file a consumer proposal, or to file personal bankruptcy, you want to know that you have chosen to work with a team of professionals supervised by the two guys whose name appears on the door. You want to know that our reputation is very important, and that we will do everything in our power to administer your file in a professional manner.

You can choose your trustee. There are hundreds of other trustees in Ontario; there is no shortage of licensed trustees willing to help you with your financial problems. So why should you choose Hoyes Michalos?

Hoyes Michalos Running Team

First, we are real people, active in the community. A number of our staff participate in many community events, including the Oktoberfest 5km and 10km run held on October 17, 2010. (That’s me, Doug Hoyes, in the white shirt, along with Scott Schaefer, our Kitchener office trustee, Amie and Jennifer from our Kitchener office, Nelly from our tax group, and Ian Martin, our Kitchener office client service specialist). The Hoyes Michalos running team is our way to stay fit, and to stay active in the community. (Our next scheduled event will be the Cambridge Times Rotary Classic in May, 2011). More details are available on our community involvement page.

Second, all of our trustees and staff were hired and trained by Doug Hoyes and Ted Michalos. We believe we have assembled the “A-Team”; caring professionals who know their stuff, and are willing to take the time to explain your options in detail so that you can make an informed decision.

Third, we are one of the largest firms devoted to personal insolvency in Ontario, so we have the skill, expertise and technology to help you deal with your money problems. We are not a “one man band”. If you call our 310-PLAN debt hotline during normal office hours, 99% of the time you will get a live person who can deal with your issue immediately. You will not have to “push 1 for English”, and you will not hear a recorded message that says “please hold while we connect your call.”

Finally, even though we are a large firm with twenty consumer proposal and bankruptcy offices across Ontario, we are not a large, multi-national accounting firm. We handle proposals and bankruptcies for people, and that’s it. We don’t do audits or tax returns for large corporations. We don’t report to a board of directors in New York. We work with debtors and creditors in Ontario, and that’s all we do.

At Hoyes Michalos, we want you to solve your debt problems, but we are not going to try to “sell” you a “one size fits all” solution. A consumer proposal may be the best option; perhaps for you a bankruptcy is necessary; perhaps help with budgeting or a referral to a not for profit credit counsellor will solve your problems. We created this web site to give you the tools to research your options on your own, for free, so please take advantage of our sections on:

• consumer proposals
• personal bankruptcy in Ontario
• help in dealing with debt

Check out our debt options calculator; it takes five seconds to find out the approximate cost of different debt management options.

Then, when you have finished your research, complete our on-line debt evaluation and one of our professionals will e-mail or call you with your options. Or, pick up the phone and call us today at 310-PLAN (that’s 310-7526, no area code required), or send us an e-mail.

We are here to help you, so let’s get started.

You have seen the ads that promise to "reduce your debt by up to 70% without filing bankruptcy." The ads sound too good to be true, and they make you wonder who you are dealing with. How can someone running an ad in a newspaper make such a bold claim?

The procedure they are "selling" is often a consumer proposal and the claim of 70% debt reduction is often correct. Most people that file a consumer proposal repay about 30% of what they owe.

The second half of the claim, "without filing bankruptcy" is also true. A consumer proposal is a legal procedure administered by licensed trustees in bankruptcy who also serve as consumer proposal administrators, but it is not bankruptcy.

Where the people running these ads run into trouble (and that is not to suggest they are breaking the law because as far as I can tell they aren’t) is the fact that they charge you a fee for their services when all of the information they provide and the assistance that they give is available free of charge from trustees in bankruptcy.

Let me say that another way: the service these companies provide is to help you assemble the information necessary to file a consumer proposal. They can’t actually file a consumer proposal themselves, as only licensed consumer proposal administrators can do that. So once they have gathered up all of your information and you have paid them their fee, they refer you to a trustee to prepare and file the consumer proposal. What they don’t tell you is that if you had called a trustee directly there wouldn’t have been this extra fee – they would have provided the same service without the fee.

So who are you dealing with? Well, the companies running these ads call themselves debt consultants. There are no regulations for this industry as until some one thought up this “scam” a few years ago the industry didn’t exist. If there are no regulations then there is also no government oversight. If you decide to deal with one of these companies and something goes wrong, your only recourse is through the Courts. Given that you called them because you were in financial difficulty, what are the chances if something goes wrong you can afford to take them to Court? For most people the answer is slim or none.

So, if you are going to have to deal with a licensed trustee to file a consumer proposal, and the trustee won’t charge you an extra fee to help you assemble the information required to prepare a consumer proposal, why exactly would anyone ever deal with one of these companies?

The answer for some people is that they saw an ad, and responded to it, without asking any questions. For other people they use a debt consultant because they were afraid that a trustee would only talk to them about bankruptcy, and wouldn’t mention other alternatives, like a consumer proposal.

Don’t be fooled. Before you sign any agreement to help you deal with your debts, and before you hand over any of your hard earned (and in short supply) money, ask the person if the solution for you is to file a consumer proposal. If it is then ask them if they are a licensed trustee. If they are not then there really isn’t any point in dealing with them further.

Want to find out more? Call Hoyes, Michalos & Associates today. You can reach us at 310-PLAN (no area code required anywhere in Ontario), or call your local Hoyes Michalos office, or you can e-mail us, or even fill out our free evaluation form and we will respond with some personalized suggestions to deal with your debts. We are licensed by the federal government as both trustees in bankruptcy and consumer proposal administrators, and we do not charge an up front fee. We will explain to you, in detail, all of your debt management options, so that you can make an informed decision. No high pressure ads. Just information from licensed professionals.

On February 4, 2009 Ted Michalos was interviewed by the Globe and Mail. The article got a huge response, so the Globe and Mail asked me to participate in a “live chat” event. Readers were invited to send in their questions about personal bankruptcy in Canada, and I gave them instant answers to their questions. The reporter e-mailed me the questions, and I typed my answers and e-mailed them back. The plan was to answer questions from noon until 1:00 pm, but the response was so great we kept at it until almost 2:00 pm. I even got reports that people had trouble logging in to the Globe and Mail’s server due to the high demand.

The questions asked were great, and they did a great job of illustrating the wide range of financial problems people have, but I was also happy to share the wide range of solutions that are also available. You can read all of the questions, and my answers, in the Globe and Mail’s article on what you need to know about bankruptcy. If you didn’t get your question answered, please e-mail us your questions now, and our team will respond as quickly as possible.

Ted Michalos was also hard at work on Wednesday, doing a live interview on BNN, the Business News Network. You can watch Ted discuss the five things to consider before filing bankruptcy on our bankruptcy video page.

I suspect you will see Ted and I, and our other trustees, on the radio, on television, and in the newspaper frequently over the next few months. The media’s job is to cover the issues that matter to Canadians, and at the moment there is nothing more important to most Canadians than the state of our economy. Many of us have more debt than we can handle, and the media is looking for people that offer solutions. We are proud that our firm has a great reputation, which is why the media calls on us for comments.

The good news for you is this: you don’t have to wait for us to appear on TV, and you don’t have to submit your question to a newspaper to get an answer from our experts. Simply contact us today, by phone at 310-PLAN or by e-mail, and we will answer your questions, tell you your options, and help you get a fresh start.