Collection calls and potential Audits

[GWBcasualty]

I am at the beginning of the process and I must say that this Forum is what has given me the strength to look at the future and really work for a fresh start.

About a month ago we finally decided that it was the right business decision for us and stopped paying and/or in the process of stopping our CCs (never late/never missed).

We plan to retain an attorney in a couple of months and file in August/September, all things being as expected we will be under median, no-asset and able to retain business inventory through CA System 2 exemptions.

There are two topics that I see most people stressing the most: Calls and Audits.

I am 4-6 weeks late in 5 accounts (BofA [2], Advanta, Citi [2]).
Calls were coming in briskly, I decided to talk to each of one once. "Business is really bad, we have been customers a long time... I cannot make a payment... maybe in a month or two thing will get better"
They were nice and in the past few days there no calls, except the automatic robo-call at 8:02 this morning.

I know is going to get worse, but I fell that it can be helpful to let them know you are alive and going through some troubles.... I may change my mind in a few days?!?

As far as audits:
I have been reading here for a while and I know many have discharged huge amount of debts without an hiccup. While others have been under scrutiny.

It certainly make sense that if you are way over median, you will get additional scrutiny, but I don't think that high debt is much of a trigger.

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=29448&highlight=debt

My common sense says that the UST looks to recover money/assets and will look to pursue cases where he/she feels there may be something to dig up... I am not going to bring bad karma on me by under-estimating the possibility and I know it could cause a great deal of stress, but ultimately one must look at the bottom line. In other words: If you have no equity, no hidden assets, no insider payments, does it really matter?? I know I will be unable to produce some CC statements older than 6 months if asked, but I will be able to produce up to 10 years of bank statements and they can dig in there as much as they want... nothing to hide, just some bad decisions here and there.

[StartingOver08]

Since you have just stopped paying on your credit cards last month, you should still be able to access your accounts online. You can normally download the last 6 yrs of statements to your hard drive.

I know that you can for BOA and Advanta because I did, but in order to do so I had to sign up for paperless billing! Not a problem, it is free. Do that right away so if you need to access more than 6 months of credit card statements you have them all saved on your hard drive. It will save you lots and lots of stress.

[debtmonster]

It certainly make sense that if you are way over median, you will get additional scrutiny, but I don't think that high debt is much of a trigger.

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=29448&highlight=debt

That was one of my best ever threads that I started. There's a TON of great reading in that thread. I bet thousands of people have learned a lot and can see real-live examples of the trouble people are in. That's the kind of stuff you'd only see if you broke into a bankruptcy attorney's office and started digging through personal files.

I hope you learned a lot from that thread and this forum. I know I have. I'm having to wait until July to file because of a big Christmas bonus I had in December that put us way over the median. All of my checks for this year have been about $1,000 or so under the median for January and February. As long as it continues like this for the next few months, hopefully it won't be too bad.