I took out a loan with HFC for $7000 a couple of years ago and was paying them. At the onset of the loan they did not produce me with a debit card as promised, but issued me checks. Over a period HFC claimed one of my payment did not post but the money was in the bank, and it was an error on their part that they would never own up to. After that time my interest rate skyrocketed to 25%. I was paying $134 a month and 10 dollars was going towards the principal. I could not get this company to reduce the interest rate without letting them refinance my home which I refused to do. They even told me that my home was not worth what I told them. They have said all types of insulting things to me. I even wrote to their headquarters and got no result. I became frustrated and stop paying. For a year HFC has been calling my home every 15 min. Now they have referred my account to a collection agency. The collection agency said they will reduce the amount to $5000 if I could pay them in the month of march. This conversation took place on the 26th of March, not many days left in March to comply. They even told me to borrow the money from relatives. The results is me paying them an initial fee of 180 and 100 dollars a month but I will have to pay back $9000. Should I get a lawyer? I want to get this amount reduced to an amount that I can pay in a few installments. How do I go about resolving this issue?

You need any payment plan in writing, a verbal agreement holds no merit.

And after you stopped paying there will be late fees, and then legal fees or more

You made a big mistake in stopping payment. Instead of stopping payment you should have contacting state banking authorities or filed suit to get them to correct your account. Now, having defaulted on the loan, you have put yourself in a bad position. It might be better to get an attorney to untangle it.

Once you stopped making payments you defaulted on the loan (which is a contract) which put HFC in the driver's seat. You need an Attorney at this point.