Howard Dvorkin

Howard Dvorkin is a CPA, author, national columnist, and founder of the nation’s fourth-largest credit counseling agency. He has controversially advocated a cash-only lifestyle without credit cards.

Contents

• Howard dvorkin personal finance expert and entrepreneur
• Howard dvorkin and steve rhode life as a debt relief counselor
• References

Dvorkin founded Consolidated Credit in 1993 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It earned an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau and eventually grew to be one to the largest counseling and consolidation firms, behind Money Management International, CredAbility, and GreenPath.

Dvorkin has written two books: Credit Hell (Wiley, 2005) and Power Up (Wiley, 2013). He is a regular personal finance contributor to Fox Business and has been quoted as a financial expert by The New York Times, NBC News, CNN, and Bankrate, among other national media outlets.

After watching his company’s clients struggle with credit card debt, Dvorkin concluded, “Learning to live without a credit card is an integral part of financial empowerment....It’s about cash and discipline. Those who don’t use credit cards take money much more seriously than credit card users. The act of physically handing over the dollars and cents to a cashier or waitress generates a feeling of loss."

This opinion has stood in stark contrast to the ever-increasing U.S. consumers’ love of credit cards, and their increasing debt. In 2012, those consumers had an average 3.7 cards and an unpaid balance of over $5,600. Meanwhile, credit card debt totaled nearly $800 billion.

Shocked at these numbers and U.S. consumers’ lack of financial education, Dvorkin announced in 2013 that he was stepping down as Consolidated Credit’s spokesperson to launch Debt.com, an educational and news site covering consumer debt with the goal to "build an Angie’s List or a Better Business Bureau solely focused on debt, debt relief products, for all types of debt relief."