No.  The debt settlement process involves negotiating with your creditors to settle your debt for amounts considerably less than what you currently owe.   Debt consolidation can be completed one of two ways: The first method is through a debt consolidation loan.  A debt consolidation loan converts unsecured debt into secured debt via a home mortgage, which usually takes the form of a home equity loan.  (If you do not have enough equity, bad credit, or too much debt, you are not likely to receive approval for a debt consolidation loan).  In summary, if a lender has a house as collateral (and is not paid), there can be a mortgage foreclosure and one’s home can be taken away.  In a consolidation loan, a consumer is paying a good deal of money in closing costs, fees and interest for the privilege of putting his/her most value asset at risk-usually the right method.  Debt consolidation may also take the form of unsecured loans or transferring credit card balances to a new provider.  With debt consolidation loans, you basically move the debt from one creditor to another.   The second method is going through a debt consolidation service, also referred to as debt consolidation counselors, which claim to provide help and direction for people with debt and credit problems.  They call themselves non-profit debt consolidation companies, but this can be misleading.  The bottom line is that these “non-profit” debt consolidation companies are funded by the credit card companies who they are hypothetically “negotiating” with to help you.  They claim that they will work with your creditors to provide you lower interest rates and payments.  However, you pay a fee to have these services monthly and it is to their best interest to keep you in the program as long as they can and pay back almost every dime you owe.  Therefore,  the goal of debt settlement is to negotiate agreed payoff amounts with your creditors.  This will save you sizable amounts of money on debt principal and interest.  It also provides you with the opportunity to pay-off your debts faster.