Credit card debt is a consistently uphill battle—a Sisyphean task where you feel like once you’re almost to the top, you slide back down the hill again.

Combined with other debts, or multiple credit card, the task becomes even tougher.

There’s a difference between debt consolidation, debt consolidation agencies, and credit counseling.

Credit counseling involves talking you through your debt or talking with your creditors about your debt. The process takes your debt, consolidates it into one monthly payment, and allows you to pay through them.

Debt consolidation agencies are essentially credit counselors. But there is an actual definition for debt consolidation that none of these folks do.

Debt consolidation is “one new loan that will pay off all your existing debt, put you on a fixed monthly payment with a set plan for when the debt will be gone.”

Gone are the days where you’d go to the bank or to a credit union to get a debt consolidation loan. Now, they’re mostly offered by peer-to-peer agencies.

There are many scams, however:

“There are sites out there that look very professional and they typically promise money with very little in terms of credit standards,” Detweiler says.”

Such sites are usually just outlets to obtain your personal information, so do your homework beforehand.