You saw them advertised on TV at 3 a.m. during a sleepless night worrying about your bills.

Now, you're paying sky-high fees and wondering whether this is really the best way to get out of debt.

Bad credit counseling companies are everywhere -- and the worse they are, the more they advertise.

They draw you in by promising to cut your monthly payments and get bill collectors off your back. But they charge enormous amounts for their services and don't always do what they say.

"Our industry is no different from any other -- it's plagued with bad actors," says Gail Cunningham, senior director of public relations for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, a nonprofit organization. An agency is unscrupulous, she says, if it's "more concerned with their bottom line than yours."

Here are some warning signs:

Red flag 1. They push a debt management plan on you.

Good credit counselors review your finances before offering a solution. They know that many consumers can control debt by simply cutting back on spending, managing their cash more wisely or taking on a part-time job.

Bad credit counselors will immediately recommend a debt management plan. That requires you to send large sums of money to the credit counselor, who then doles it out to your creditors.

Bad credit counselors only want to work with you if you'll agree to a debt management plan, or DMP as it's sometimes called, because they want to take lots of fees out of the money you send them every month.

If the counselor is obviously using a script and won't stop pushing you to sign up for a debt management plan before he or she has even reviewed your finances, that's a good sign the company doesn't have your best interests at heart.

Red flag 2. They charge ridiculous fees.

Bad credit counselors typically charge customers a percentage of the debt they get written off or a percentage of the client's total debt, with no caps or limits on how much that can be. For example, they'll keep $20 out of every $100 you send them.

Good credit counselors, on the other hand, usually charge a flat fee of $5 to $30 a month to administer a DMP, no matter how much you owe. Those that do use a sliding scale keep something like $5 of every $100 clients send them and cap those fees at $40 per month.

Red flag 3. They're not paying your bills.

If they're charging sky-high fees, they're bad. If they're not paying your bills on time, they're fraudulent.

Most credit counselors who create a debt management plan will have the address on your credit cards and other accounts changed to have the bills sent directly to their office.

Don't blindly accept monthly statements created by the credit counselor as proof that they're taking your money and paying your bills. If you were pressured into a DMP and you're paying big fees, you need to go online and look at your credit card statements to confirm that the payments are being made.

Consumers who don't do that may not discover such fraud until collection agencies track them down. By that time they've been socked with even more late fees and penalties by their creditors and the counseling service has vanished with all of their money.

Red flag 4. They require a minimum amount of debt.

You should be concerned if the ads for your credit counseling service say, "If you have at least $5,000 in debt, call us," or you receive a telephone solicitation that promises, "We can help if you owe $10,000 or more."

A legitimate agency will be willing to work with you regardless of what you owe.

Bad credit counselors can't make enough money off customers who only owe a few thousand dollars.

"The person who owes $3,000 doesn't sleep any easier than the person who owes $30,000," Cunningham says.

Red flag 5. You're offered a debt consolidation loan.

You're not talking to a credit counselor who wants to help you get out of debt. You're dealing with a salesperson who wants to make money off your problems.

He or she might employ some gimmick to make a single monthly payment appear to be less than the total payments on the bills you'd roll into a consolidation loan.

But trust us. These are very expensive loans that will keep you in debt for years.

"Like anyone else who's selling you something, (these people) don't have your best interests at heart," says Tiff Worley, president of Auriton Solutions, a nonprofit debt counseling agency.

If you've already fallen in with the wrong folks, here's how to extract yourself:

Smart move 1. Cut off fraudulent counselors immediately.

If they haven't paid your creditors, or haven't paid them the full amount they said they would, just stop paying them. They've broken their agreement with you.

Stop sending them a check or revoke their ability to take money out of your bank account.

Then report them to your state's attorney general.

Smart move 2. For everyone else, follow the termination process in your contract.

As you might expect, bad credit counselors charge cancellation fees if you terminate the service.

Know what they are and be prepared to challenge any attempt to charge more. Consider it to be a final kick in the pants for a mistake you won't make again.

Send written notification by certified mail of your intent to cancel. That will ensure that the agency receives it -- and they won't be able to claim they didn't.

Call all of your creditors and have your bills routed back to your address.

Smart move 3. Sign up with a good credit counselor.

We recommend Cunningham's group, the National Federation of Credit Counselors.

Its 120 member agencies abide by a set of professional and ethical standards that have served many individuals and families well over the past 50 years.

Here's where to find a credit counselor in your area. Use the "Zip Code Search" to get a list of nearby agencies. Click on the individual agencies to find everything from fees to office hours.

By Regan Doherty

Interest.com Associate Editor

Have a question about your finances? Ask us at editors@interest.com.