Pacer

[Carmella]

I went to PACER to pay my bill from last quarter, I thought I should have been billed for it by now, but was not I had the date Oct 10th in my head. I didn't search to find out when they send out the quarterly payments, just glad it's paid for and hopefully it is a new quarter as I was charge 20 cents so far for trying to find our case. I wish I knew how to use it more effectively and not get charged for my mistakes!

I read this:

Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, if a PACER user quarterly usage is $30 or less, the bill will be waived. This is an increase from the existing $15 or less quarterly fee waiver. Users will see this reflected in the April 2020 billing statement. This will result in more than 75 percent of users accessing court records paying no fee in a given quarter. The Judicial Conference approved this action at their September 17, 2019, meeting.

There's some good savings for us especially someone like me who started clicking through the many reports from the creditors and making mistakes now and then and adding up to slightly over $15!

I printed out some info last time so I don't need to read through a lot, but wanted to see if there's anything new posted. When I tried to see my case I got an error message, maybe something is up with the site at the moment

[sophieanne]

Hi Carmella ..i'm guessing the site is down at the moment. That's good news about the increase to $30; it will make it much better for those who can in once and a while just to see what's happening, or those who want to print documents like yourself. I hope you're doing well these days

[justbroke]

This is very good news. However, the PACER-holics should still be careful. One of my first PACER bills was over $100.

[tm0101]

What's the difference between NDC and Pacer? They both show the progress of your case and NDC is free, why do you have to pay in Pacer?

[justbroke]

PACER is the actually the readonly-version of the Court's Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. Think of PACER (or CM/ECF) as the electronic docket... which it is. The federal court does not receive any budget for CM/ECF, so the costs come from usage. Mostly, debtor attorney for Chapter 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 debtors along with all Trustees (Chapter 7 Panel and Chapter 13 Trustees) end up paying the fees to run the system. PACER currently does not bill for low usage (less than $15 a quarter) as a way to offer some "free" usage to those that are not attorneys and able to bill the usage. You can also use PACER for free at all Bankruptcy Clerk's office and some law libraries. (PACER will increase the "low usage" limit to $30 next year.)

NDC, or the National Data Center, is a centralized system used by the Office of the United States Trustee (OUST/UST) to manage cases. It is paid for by the Trustees and OUST through the administrative payments collected from Trustees from the management of Chapter 13 cases. In essence Chapter 13 debtors indirectly pay for this system.

[Carmella]

I didn't realize I had automatic payment. I got the email yesterday saying my automatic payment would be taken Nov 11. I just paid the other day thinking it was due! Oh well, it's paid I went into PACER and checked my account and automatic payment was checked so I unchecked it.

I ran up $2.30 yesterday! The limit is $15 this quarter and I really do not need to look at more. I have learned to download so I do not have to search for something again. I just want to know how to locate my account without getting a charge every time, even though it's only 10 cents I feel like I am missing something and should be able to find it without charge! And what is the best way to find the most current info is it opening the..ummmm I can't remember what it is called, but it's a page that shows all the documents and I think there's a charge to view that page, but then you get more charges if you open any of those documents!

I never did have my husband open an account, that would be one way to help defray the cost.