I don't talk about this much, but spouse and I are in a debt relief program right now. I know programs vary, but with ours, the issues wasn't that they closed the cards; it was that in order to get the companies ready to negotiate, we had to stop payments entirely until a settlement was reached. And yes, our credit rating is in the toilet (although we are still getting pre-approved card offers, which is just everything that is wrong with our economy). But as Bruce said, it was pretty bad already, and was only going to get worse if our situation had continued as it was. Now, at least, we expect to be credit card debt-free in the near future, and we're already paying less than half of what we were just to keep up with the minimum payments.