Good to know
Common questions
Everything people ask us, answered the way we would answer it on the phone — including the questions whose honest answer costs us money.
About Mannah Financial
- What is Mannah Financial?
- A free matching service. You answer a short set of questions, and if your situation fits what one of our independent partner providers works with, we show you who they are and let you decide whether to be connected. We are not a lender, a debt relief provider, or a law firm.
- Is it really free?
- Yes. Using the site costs nothing and obligates you to nothing. We are paid by providers, not by you, and a provider charges you the same whether you reached them through us or on your own.
- How do you make money, then?
- Providers pay us when an introduction reaches them and meets their criteria — sometimes a fixed fee per introduction or per connected call, sometimes a small percentage if you enroll. We have written the whole arrangement out, including where our interests and yours come apart, on the "How we get paid" page.
- Do I have to be a person of faith?
- No. Our values come out of a faith tradition and we are open about that, but you will never be asked what you believe and it makes no difference to what you are shown. Everyone is welcome here.
- Are you licensed?
- A matching service does not hold a lending or debt relief license, and we do not claim one. The providers we introduce you to hold whatever licenses or registrations their state requires for the work they do, and we check that before we work with them.
Your information
- What happens to what I tell you?
- It stays with us until you choose a specific provider on your results page and tick that provider's consent box. Only then is it shared, and only with them. We do not sell your details to multiple buyers and we do not rent our list to anyone.
- Will I get flooded with calls?
- Not from us sharing your number around, because we only ever pass it to the one provider you choose. That provider will contact you, because that is what you asked for. If you want it to stop, reply STOP to a text or write to us and we will add you to our do-not-contact list.
- Do you ask for my Social Security number?
- Only on the personal loan path, where the marketplace requires it to return real offers. It is passed straight to that marketplace and is never stored by us, never sent to our CRM, and never sent to any other partner. The debt, tax, and business debt paths never ask for it.
- Can I have my information deleted?
- Yes. Write to our privacy mailbox from the email address you used, or with the phone number you used, and we will delete your record except for anything a law requires us to keep. We will tell you what we did.
Debt relief
- How much do I need to owe?
- Most providers work with people who owe around $10,000 or more in unsecured debt — credit cards, medical bills, store cards, some personal debts. Secured debts such as a mortgage or a car loan do not qualify because the lender can simply take the asset instead.
- What does a debt relief program actually do?
- A provider negotiates directly with your creditors to try to settle balances for less than the full amount. Most programs replace several payments with one monthly program payment, and a fee is charged only after a debt is actually settled.
- Will it affect my credit?
- Assume that it will. Settling for less than the full balance is reported to the credit bureaus, and programs usually involve falling behind on payments first. A provider has to explain this to you before you enroll, and any site that tells you there is no credit impact is not telling you the truth.
- Can creditors still call me or sue me?
- Yes. Enrolling in a program does not stop collection activity, and a creditor can still take legal action, including filing suit, while you are enrolled. Anyone who tells you a program stops the calls is overstating what it can do.
- Is forgiven debt taxable?
- It can be. The IRS generally treats forgiven debt as income, and you may receive a 1099-C. There are exclusions — insolvency being the common one — but that is a question for a tax professional and not for us.
Tax debt
- What can a tax relief provider actually do?
- Help you apply for the arrangements the IRS or your state already offers: installment agreements, penalty abatement where you have reasonable cause, currently-not-collectible status, and in some cases an offer in compromise. They prepare and argue the case. They do not have a private channel to the IRS, and nobody does.
- Can I do this myself for free?
- Often, yes, and we will say so. An installment agreement for most balances can be set up online at irs.gov in about fifteen minutes at no cost. Providers earn their fee on complicated situations — unfiled returns, liens and levies, business payroll tax, or a genuine offer in compromise case.
- Will an offer in compromise wipe out what I owe?
- Very rarely, and only for people whose finances genuinely cannot support paying the full amount. The IRS accepts a minority of the offers it receives. Any advertisement suggesting a routine settlement for a fraction of the balance is describing an outcome most people will not get.
- I got a letter from the IRS. Is it urgent?
- It depends which one. Some notices are a first reminder; others are the legal step before a levy and carry a hard deadline. Our guide to IRS notices explains what each of the common ones means and how long you have.
Business & MCA debt
- What counts as business debt here?
- Merchant cash advances, business lines of credit, equipment financing, business credit cards, and business term debt. The common case is a business carrying several cash advances whose daily or weekly draws have outgrown what revenue can cover.
- Does a personal guarantee change things?
- Yes, substantially. Most small business financing is personally guaranteed, which means a default can follow you personally as well as the business. Any provider who does not ask about your guarantees early is not doing the work properly.
- Can a provider stop the daily draws?
- Not unilaterally. A provider negotiates with funders to try to reach a restructured arrangement, and funders are not obliged to agree. Programs can affect both business and personal credit, and funders may continue collection or take legal action in the meantime.
Personal loans
- Who is actually lending the money?
- Not us. We pass your request to a loan marketplace that returns offers from participating lenders. Any loan is between you and the lender that makes it, on their terms.
- Does checking offers affect my credit score?
- Seeing initial offers generally involves a soft inquiry, which does not affect your score. If you go on to accept an offer, that lender will run a hard inquiry, which can. The marketplace and the lender will tell you which is which before it happens.
- What rate will I get?
- We cannot tell you, and neither can anyone before they have seen your file. The rate a lender offers depends on your credit history, income, the amount, the term, and where you live. Any advertised starting rate is the best case for the strongest applicant, not a quote.
- Should I borrow to pay off credit cards?
- Sometimes. A consolidation loan at a lower rate than your cards, with a payment you can actually make, is a genuinely good outcome. It is a bad outcome if the rate is not lower, if the term stretches the debt out for years, or if the cards fill back up. Our guide on this walks through the arithmetic.
Not here? Write to us — the questions people actually ask are how this page gets longer. Contact us.
See what fits your situation
A few questions, a few minutes. Free, no obligation, nothing shared until you choose.