Right now millions of people all across America are stuck dealing with very bad debt situations.  The economy has placed people in financial positions where they had to rely solely on their credit cards merely to put food on the table.  It really has gotten that bad for quite a lot of people.  There is a solution for such folks who would like to avoid bankruptcy but do not have all the funds to pay off the creditors in full.  This solution is debt settlement, a plan in which the main benefits are to save money on the balanced owed and escape the debt trap in a very fast manner.