The 60 Day Club.....

[lrprn]

I am upset, but I pretty much have no other recourse due to the fact that cancelling my accounts will cause me more harm than good. They even through in the fact that now that I have filed bankruptcy, its going to be necessary to have some place where you can get another credit card as well as another car loan in the future and they are willing to help, but not if I am unwilling to sign the re-affirmation agreement.

There's one bright spot in this gloom and doom, 6ft. Since you filed pro se, the bankruptcy judge must approve any reaffirmation agreements you and this creditor sign. A part of that process is to make sure that the credit union is not pressuring you to repay what is beyond what you can afford.

Frankly my $0.02 - don't sign. They aren't the only credit lender in the game. When your Ch 7 case closes, you are going to be flooded with credit offers - all our discharged and closed filers have been. Most won't be good terms at the start. If you can hold off and stay on a cash-and-carry budget for six months, you'll get much better credit card offers. After a year or so, your offers will be almost as good as someone who never filed.

Since you're filing and wiping out your unsecured debts, you can save that cash for a car downpayment. Enough down and any car dealer will be happy to work with you even a few months after your discharge.

Don't let your credit union hold you hostage using your fear to persuade you to do something that isn't in your best interest. Within 1-2 years your offers are going to be very good from many lenders. Truly you won't need your credit union.

Frankly , what's to stop your credit union from saying no when you come to them in a year to finance a car? What's to stop them from adding on an outrageous APR either? Nothing. They aren't quite the easy out they are making themselves appear to be.

Make the decision that's best for you in the long run, not the short term.

[6ftladycop]

There's one bright spot in this gloom and doom, 6ft. Since you filed pro se, the bankruptcy judge must approve any reaffirmation agreements you and this creditor sign. A part of that process is to make sure that the credit union is not pressuring you to repay what is beyond what you can afford.

Frankly my $0.02 - don't sign. They aren't the only credit lender in the game. When your Ch 7 case closes, you are going to be flooded with credit offers - all our discharged and closed filers have been. Most won't be good terms at the start. If you can hold off and stay on a cash-and-carry budget for six months, you'll get much better credit card offers. After a year or so, your offers will be almost as good as someone who never filed.

Since you're filing and wiping out your unsecured debts, you can save that cash for a car downpayment. Enough down and any car dealer will be happy to work with you even a few months after your discharge.

Don't let your credit union hold you hostage using your fear to persuade you to do something that isn't in your best interest. Within 1-2 years your offers are going to be very good from many lenders. Truly you won't need your credit union.

Frankly , what's to stop your credit union from saying no when you come to them in a year to finance a car? What's to stop them from adding on an outrageous APR either? Nothing. They aren't quite the easy out they are making themselves appear to be.

Make the decision that's best for you in the long run, not the short term.

Thank you for your advice. I have not signed anything yet. You are right about me getting better deals in the future and I have to keep remembering that as I go through this final step of this process. I will keep posting and reading and thanks again. I needed that pep talk.

[JRScott]

I would not sign any reaffirmation agreement. Them sending it to you is a violation of the stay if you filed bankruptcy if you didn't indicate in your paperwork that you were going to reaffirm.

You will get other credit offers.

I would consider taking your savings account and moving the funds out of it into a bank unaffiliated with any of your debt. (Or Credit Union).

They are trying to railroad you. It might be worth seeing a lawyer to see if they could help you in this one matter. Might be worth paying him for an hour of his time.

Heck throughout my filing I kept getting credit card offers, none of which I filled out. You will be able to get credit again in the future. Don't think you have to keep up with them in order to do so.

In the mean time make an emergency fund savings account at another bank. You'll want to get 500 to 1000 dollars in it as soon as you can, and only touch in an emergency. Ultimately you should have 3-6 months in it. When an emergency comes up fall back on the emergency fund not credit.

I hope you pull through this.

[6ftladycop]

I really want to thank all of you who have been trying to give me advice about the credit union at my job. I really have been trying to follow all of your advice but it has turned out negative for me all around. Credit Unions must have some power beyond the "automatic stay" because 7-31-07 when I filed and 8-10-07 when all parties received the bankruptcy notice of meeting 341, every person responded except the credit union until yesterday. Not only did they not respond, but they never stopped taking payroll deductions set up years ago out of my account to pay off the credit card and the credit union loan.

I asked several times on this site if anybody had ever been in my position. I know folks here have had dealings with credit unions, but I needed someone who has actually been in my position where you actually worked at the place where you had credit and loans and filed against them and continued to work there. No offense, but from the beginning when I first started having this problem with the credit union, many folks gave me answers but none of the answers fit the problem I was having. Its easy to tell someone to close an account, open another one without having actually gone through the process of what all is involved.

I did indicate that the credit union has been extremely difficult to deal with. I also indicated that I have been with them for over 20yrs and have never had this problem, but the bankruptcy lawyers said that all unsecured debt had to be listed so with great reluctance, I listed them even though I did not want to because I knew this would happen.

The payroll deduction of 114.oo dollars a pay period is already deducted from my paycheck when I get it for payment on the loan and credit card. As I sit here, I am wondering how to close all the accounts, keep my money I have in the credit union savings and checking and get them to give it all to me without any more trouble. This issue seems harder than the actual filing of chapter 7 bankruptcy because the run around from the credit union all while having cash station card, checking account, savings account, online bill payments, credit card, loans, all my personal checks, and just about everything related to banking with the credit union is a big ole issue. I,m pratically in tears here wondering how to resolve this, so please nobody get offended, but I really would like some feedback from anyone one or more persons who have actually worked at a place where they filed against them and survived...tell me how you did that.

[lrprn]

Credit Unions must have some power beyond the "automatic stay" ... they never stopped taking payroll deductions set up years ago out of my account to pay off the credit card and the credit union loan.

Credit unions are no different than any other creditor, 6ft - NO CREDITOR, even your employer, is allowed to ignore the automatic stay and keep taking money to pay unsecured debts.

What your credit union did is a blatant violation of the automatic stay. If you had a lawyer, that lawyer would be firing off a letter threatening legal action so fast, your CU's head would be spnning like a top!

I'm hazarding a guess that since you are a pro se filer, they are gambling that you won't know how to respond or will be too afraid to respond and will allow their outrageous illegal debt collecting activity to continue.

...but the bankruptcy lawyers said that all unsecured debt had to be listed

The lawyers were 100% right. You must list all your debt no matter what the extenuating circumstances might be. The law specifically forbids picking and choosing between your debts when you file.

Its easy to tell someone to close an account, open another one without having actually gone through the process of what all is involved.

Agreed. None of us can truly understand what this has been like for you, 6ft.

Your specific situation with so much of your debt and personal accounts being held by your employer is a very unusual one. I'm not sure you are going to get any responses. And I can't think of any members who have posted examples that exactly match yours over the last year and a half I've been regularly coming here to the Forum either .

I'm so sorry that this is happening to you, 6ft. To deal with your horrible employer effectively and decisively, you really will need a lawyer or hope to find more courage to start forcing them into court yourself for violating your stay.

Even if you can only pay for a few hours of lawyer time to get advice and expert help to deal with this situation, that has to be preferable to the fear and frustration you are dealing with now not knowing where to turn. At least please consider it.

I wish with all my heart that I could take this burden from you so you could relax and have some peace. I would if I could.

[6ftladycop]

Well, I gave in and agreed to let them keep taking the money out since they had never stopped. Don't everybody start jumping on me at once please. This is so stressful of a new situation. I know this is in violation, but the cutting off the cash station card on payday when I had to feed my kids was real deep and I mean that in the most angry of ways. The freezing of my checking account on payday was completely unprofessional and unheard of, but last and not least the fact that they have all my money in either checking or savings tied up with me threatening them and them taking money or me giving in and me keeping other monies, getting my account unfrozen and getting my cash station Visa card back to use to pay my bills without fees(which are costing me a fortune)...well all I can say is this.....I never saw the money they were taking out anyway and yes, I have noticed that there was not a single person here who had a situation like mine and yes I did agree to let them keep on. It may not be the best thing to have done, but its all I could do right then.

All that advice I got about opening another account, getting another checking account, getting another cash station card etc....I am pretty sure some of the folks giving me that advice here did not realize that nobody would give me any of that with a bankrupty on my credit. I am still not sure why some folks here was telling me those things when they knew I had filed bankruptcy. Who would actually give me a checking account with that staring back at them? But in the end, I gotta say that this was probably the first time I could not find an answer to something I had to do before I actually did it, so I had to make my own decision and live with it.

[cathywhite4495]

I think that the people freezing your checking account are jerks. I don't think anybody would want to jump on you - we just don't want to see you losing any money you don't have to lose. I've read some posts (I think on the rebuilding credit?) about opening new checking accounts. It sounds like the only trouble people had was if they had bounced checks in Chexsystem and they were able to get those cleared with a bankruptcy. You should still be able to open a new account if you wanted to.
BTW - is a cash station card the same as a debit card? Just curious. Mine has a Mastercard logo on it so I can use it for online bills etc.

[familyof7]

I cant believe the bank blackmailed you like that. I opened a new checking acount the same month I filed you should be able to also. I would find that new account and have you paychecks transfered to it and withdraw all moies from the current banks checking and savings and the tell them to kiss your booty.

[JollyGG]

It sounds to me like you have made a decision you are okay with.

However, if you want to try to open an account elsewhere, be aware that you can rescind any reafirmation agreement up to 60 days after signing it or up to discharge whichever is later.

If it is a situation where your employer requires you to direct deposit your check into that bank. Well they can't do that legally. They won't tell you that until you push a little bit to get your direct deposit changed. My husband works for a banking institution and they prefer that he open an account with them and deposit his check into it. However, when push came to shove it turned out they couldn't legally require him to do that and we have most of his check deposited into our regular account.

Now that they have released your account it might not be a bad idea to look around and check into opening an account elsewhere. If you are having problems opening a checking account due to chex, cindylynsmith posted a thread about getting that straightened out.

[PaKettle]

I hope you end your relationship with this scumbag credit union!
If I were in your shoes, I think I would call up and ask to speak to the Head Guy and tell him that you know what they are doing is illegal and you are thinking of reporting them to the FTC or whatever (I'd look it up to find out the Banking Regulation dept. of your state and of the Federal Gov..)

I'm not jumping on you, I think you should do what you think is right.

However, I hope at some point, when you get a chance, you will report this bank for what they did. In fact, it seems to me (though I'm no expert) that they should be required to give you back the automatic payments they took, so you may want to look at that as well.

Certainly their practices seem illegal and at some point I would want to punish them for that, to insure they do not do it to others in the future. I bet they could be fined for what they did!