when CC's call, dont say bankruptcy??

[Moneypenny]

Hi,

I have read the advice that once you stop paying and the CC companies call you should not tell them you are planning bankruptcy or threaten it.

Can anyone explain to me why? I am willing to do whatever, but just want to pick up as much knowledge as possible.

thanks!

Mr. Moneypenny

[LuciluS]

Our BK Attorney told us late last Sept. after we gave him a retainer, we could answer the phone & give them his name & phone #. I never asked, at that time, if we should say we were filing BK. However, all of our credit card companies were notified at least twice we were filing bankruptcy. 1st time we told them Dec. or Jan. as that is the timeline our attorney gave us.

Found out some monthly monies I was receiving would be deemed Income. Dh and I wanted to be under or State Median Income. Due to the stock market tanking those monies ended 2/09. So we will be filing in 9/09 using Mar-Aug Gross Income.

I think all of over Credit Cards have been turned over to Collection Agencies. This is when our Attorney told us not to answer the phone & believe me I know why he said that. I answered the phone one day as it said cell phone with an area code where Dh's uncle lives & he calls him using such. Nope, wasn't Dh's uncle. It was a lady from NCO Financial. I was trying to give her our Attorney name & such. She went on a tirade for a couple of minutes. I finally had to tell her to shut up. Whew it worked. I gave her our Attorney's name & phone #, asked her to repeat it and said have a nice day and I hung up.

I think I would ask your Attorney next time you visit with him or call his Paralegal and ask her. I'm fortunate in that, I converse every two weeks via email with our Attorney. Lot easier for both of us.

BTW, we have received Form Letters from several collection agencies and one from an Attorney. Our attorney told us to ignore the letters. If we get sued, he will file something in court to delay the lawsuit until we get our chapter 7 filed in 9/09.

Luci

[MrSmithster]

i was told, if you already filed, give them atty name/number. if your filed as Pro Se, just give them the case number and the court/trustee contact info. the advise i was given was if you havent filed yet, dont mention it at all. things could come up causing you to delay filing and your creditor might be able to use that info against you in the future, possibly saying you had intent to file while still using your credit line or some such thing.

[griswald]

My lawyer said if I give out his name and number he will be charging me for the time he spends talking to the callers.. I will not be giving out his name or number.. I know every case and situation is different just throwing this out there..

[willbfree]

By giving out the info to your creditors that you plan to file bk you provide them with info to use against you. You do not want your creditors heading to court for judgments and garnishments months before you plan to file your bk. Our atty was afraid we would be sued before we got our petition filed and did not recommend telling any of the creditors that we planned to file bk.

If you plan to file very soon it probably won't hurt you to tell them. If for some reason like LuciluS you then have to delay filing it provides your creditors with time to go to court and sue you. We had equity in our home and a salary to garnish wages. We told none of our creditors until after the bk petition had been filed. It's a strategic advantage nothing more.

[Moneypenny]

thanks i think that must be the reason!

Mr. MP

[HHM]

Honestly, it really doesn't matter. They hear "I am filing BK" ALL THE TIME. Telling them does not speed up any action on their part.

[Rick9972]

We told none of our creditors until after the bk petition had been filed. It's a strategic advantage nothing more.

Exactly right!!!

[pa308]

My atty gave me a script of what to say "I am unable to pay you at this time. Please contact my attorney". (He was worth his $ to be able to get the hounds off )

I pretty much stuck to script and if they asked whether I was filing bankruptcy just said I was looking at that option.

BOA worried me that a suit was going to come, but my atty said not to sweat and if it did we would file the day we saw the suit. Never came about though.

[BananaCabana]

We were told a similar thing. Not to file for bk until we get a summons. Once we get a summons we are to call the lawyer and hire her. She will answer the summons for $650 and then the bk will cost us $2099. Unless something else pops up that could be an extra cost/service.

She said that way we could try to save us some time before we will have to file and move. Of course, even without our mortgage or cc payments, as our incomes have dropped so low, we will be lucky to throw $9 into savings a week. It could take a year just to pay for the lawyer. Then there will still not be any money to pay for rent somewhere. We are hoping to land second jobs and get that income up so we can save some money to move out when it is time. Even with both of us working two jobs our income is so low we would still meet the means test.

I am still trying to figure out how to handle the collection calls once they start calling. Whether to not answer and let voicemail take them or to answer and tell them I will pay them when I can get the money. I won't mention bk until we retain an attorney..........I don't think I will anyway.....

[OhioFiler]

We were told a similar thing. Not to file for bk until we get a summons. Once we get a summons we are to call the lawyer and hire her. She will answer the summons for $650 and then the bk will cost us $2099. Unless something else pops up that could be an extra cost/service.

She said that way we could try to save us some time before we will have to file and move. Of course, even without our mortgage or cc payments, as our incomes have dropped so low, we will be lucky to throw $9 into savings a week. It could take a year just to pay for the lawyer. Then there will still not be any money to pay for rent somewhere. We are hoping to land second jobs and get that income up so we can save some money to move out when it is time. Even with both of us working two jobs our income is so low we would still meet the means test.

I am still trying to figure out how to handle the collection calls once they start calling. Whether to not answer and let voicemail take them or to answer and tell them I will pay them when I can get the money. I won't mention bk until we retain an attorney..........I don't think I will anyway.....

I'd interview a few more attorneys. Seems like the $650 charge to answer the summons PLUS $2,100 for the BK is quite a lot.

I'd answer that summons myself before I'd pay an attorney $650 knowing I could file BK the next day and have the collections case dismissed.

[RackingJ]

I've been letting my answering machine field the calls for me. I've only been getting calls for about 2.5ish weeks (we're 2 mos late on everything but the house) and we're signing our paperwork to file today so I didn't really want to deal with them. If we would've had to wait longer to file, then I would've answered and referred them to our attorney.

[BananaCabana]

I'd interview a few more attorneys. Seems like the $650 charge to answer the summons PLUS $2,100 for the BK is quite a lot.

I'd answer that summons myself before I'd pay an attorney $650 knowing I could file BK the next day and have the collections case dismissed.

She was our first attny we met with and we like her the best so far. The first prospective attny we called claimed they don't do bks in our county and gave us a name for someone else. We called the referred attny but they have never returned our call. So we scratched them from the list. Then I called this one who returned my call herself immediately and got us in for a consult lickety- split. We met with another attny (by internet teleconference) a week later. They are about $200 cheaper. But they never come to our area, just by internet conference call. That makes me a little nervous. Other lawyers are about an hour away which will cost me in gas and possible time off from work. Not a decision buster but it does add to the cost to have to drive documents to the office, meet with the lawyer, etc. And if I have to work it around a my husband's and I's work schedule that also adds to the cost. Either that or I am being naive and should still consider looking into those an hour away as well.

As you suggested, I may consider answering a summons myself and then retaining the lawyer for the bk. But I get all mushy in my head when I look at legal documents. For the life of me I just can not interpret what that language is saying! Give me a budget with numbers and I am in pig heaven. Give me legalese and I go blank.

[pookieny]

My lawyer said if I give out his name and number he will be charging me for the time he spends talking to the callers.. I will not be giving out his name or number.. I know every case and situation is different just throwing this out there..

My lawyer told me to give out his name and number the day I filed, he works for you, you are the client. It's not like he would even ever take the call anyways, wouldn't probably even get past his assistant.

[AshShep01]

My atty gave me a script of what to say "I am unable to pay you at this time. Please contact my attorney". (He was worth his $ to be able to get the hounds off )

I pretty much stuck to script and if they asked whether I was filing bankruptcy just said I was looking at that option.

BOA worried me that a suit was going to come, but my atty said not to sweat and if it did we would file the day we saw the suit. Never came about though.

OMG... BOA worried me to, you have to be really careful with them. I just knew they were going to file a suit against before I was able to file. Those collectors are so freaken rude. Be on the lookout for BOA.