What do you tell creditors?

[bktmom28]

We are very new to all of this. My dh and I have never missed any CC payments or house payments, and cannot file until we have our attorney fees as they require payment before filing so we are attempting to sell my dhs truck to get the money to pay the fees. However, we are behind on our BofA CC payment. Also, we are coming up on 60 days late on our mortgage payment (we are surrendering it in the BK, are currently out of our house and renting now, WAY underwater in our mortgage), and have started getting calls from creditors. I am just wondering if I should ignore the calls, or answer and tell them that we are filing for BK. My attorney said we can answer or ignore them, but I don't want them calling my husbands work. I have changed all of our number to our home number or cell numbers, but I have heard that they have ways of getting ahold of your employer. Any tips? Also, we have a very simple case as far as I can tell. Is it worth it to try to do it pro se? If we did it pro se then we could file now rather than waiting until we have $2000 for attorney fees. Any opinions would be greatly appreciate. Thanks!

[mike258]

Most attorneys will allow you to refer collection calls to their office once you pay them some sort of retainer.


...but if you are filing pro se, I'm not sure what you say when you get a collection call.

[aljohnson007]

I have a ton of experience with BofA and can tell you what I did. After the first call, I let the rest go to the answering machine and never spoke to them again. I rode this out for 9 months before I filed (pro se) and they never did anything other than send me statements. Make sure you do not have any money in any BofA account as they will take it without notice.

[bktmom28]

I just emailed my attorney and she said that I could tell them (if I wanted to) that I was filing bankruptcy and to tell them not to contact me by phone anymore, only letters, and to refer them to her if I would like. She said they are going to keep hounding me and as long as I don't mind turning my phone off, that is all they will do. I don't mind ignoring them. After all, they did ignore all my pleas for help when they were jacking up my interest rates.

[lookingforward]

Send them a certified letter stating to only contact you by mail.
There are some form letters here in the stickies.

[BNKRPTinNC]

In our case we screened all calls, for months, until we had a case number. The only time I had a one on one, prior to receiving a case number but had retained atty, was when they came for the car (didn't get it) and when threatened with foreclosure (didn't get the house either). Both incidents I gave them my atty's name and number and that was that. It really was amazing how the phone calls went from 25+ per day to nada after the first week.

[liz417]

As soon as I retained my 1st attorney (with only $100), I was able to send all calls his way. It took a year to save the $$ for the attorney. I told all my creditors that I was going to file, they wanted more info but I just referred them to my attorney. I never answered another collections call again UNLESS it was sent to a new CA/another branch, then I would give them my info again.

[MrSmithster]

i only had one creditor call my work prior to filing and i told them the law says that if i give them notice not to call my work any more they must stop, and i politly gave them my newly changed home phone number, hooked it up to an answering machine and ignored them for 2 months. then when i was 2 weeks shy of filing, i answered the calls and told them i would contact them next payday with great news about how to settle my whole balance, of course when the day came, they all called and i gave them my case number. i dont think that was what they were expecting, but all were polite.

[liz417]

i only had one creditor call my work prior to filing and i told them the law says that if i give them notice not to call my work any more they must stop, and i politly gave them my newly changed home phone number, hooked it up to an answering machine and ignored them for 2 months. then when i was 2 weeks shy of filing, i answered the calls and told them i would contact them next payday with great news about how to settle my whole balance, of course when the day came, they all called and i gave them my case number. i dont think that was what they were expecting, but all were polite.

LOL!!! I think they were expecting a payment....

[MrSmithster]

yea, and with my payments being doubled and my interest rates all going thru the roof, i didnt feel guilty at all.

[liz417]

yea, and with my payments being doubled and my interest rates all going thru the roof, i didnt feel guilty at all.

Same here, as soon as one creditor (AMEX) lowered my limit to $200 above my balance (thus creating a "maxed out" card), ALL my other creditors jumped on the bandwagon by increasing my interest rates (from 3.99%-9.99%) to over 29% because I was "at my limit"...Yeah, I don't feel guilty either

[debtmonster]

i only had one creditor call my work prior to filing and i told them the law says that if i give them notice not to call my work any more they must stop, and i politly gave them my newly changed home phone number, hooked it up to an answering machine and ignored them for 2 months. then when i was 2 weeks shy of filing, i answered the calls and told them i would contact them next payday with great news about how to settle my whole balance, of course when the day came, they all called and i gave them my case number. i dont think that was what they were expecting, but all were polite.

Ha ha! I had the same thing with collection agencies. Once they would confirm who I was and give me the long-winded opening on the phone, they would end the sentence as, "How would you like to take care of this today?"

I would reply, "Oh, I already took care of it."

The CA would then say, "Oh really, how?"

"I hired an attorney. Here's his phone..."

It was a classic! You could just hear the sound of their voice drop as they knew they just lost out on their commission.

A CA is nothing more than a mean telemarketer.

Telling the people I was going bankrupt did almost nothing for collection agencies. As soon as I actually paid the retainer for one and started giving out his phone #, that's when the peace came to my household.

I 2nd the above... after hearing about everyone's rates going to the moon, I also don't feel guilty!

[shabam]

I wouldn't bother answering. Just make sure your voicemail clearly states your name and phone number.

[debtmonster]

Do what we did and get Google Voice phone #'s. You add the phone # of the creditor or collection agency as a "contact". Then you go into the edit mode of the company and change the option from "o Ring my: <your phone #>" and click the radio button that says "o Send to Voicemail"

You can then set up custom outgoing messages specifically for these people that are different that what you would use for all of your other callers.

Step 1: get your free Google Voice account:

http://www.google.com/voice

Step 2: Change your phone # to a non-published number.

Step 3: When people call your old #, have them say it's been changed and tell the phone company to give out your new Google Voice #.

Step 4: Contact all of your creditors and collection agencies and tell them your new Google voice phone #.

Important: When calling your creditors, DO NOT CALL FROM YOUR NEW LINE! Be sure to have the Google Voice do all of the dialing for you so that the new phone # of your Google Voice # shows up their Caller ID. Also a good idea to use this when calling everyone else you know so that they get in the habit of calling you on your new Google Voice number.

Step 5: NEVER, EVER give out your real phone # again. Have all family, friends, work, etc. all go through the Google Voice # from this point on.


From this point forward, if you ever have people call you who are a pest, you can either send all of their calls directly to voice mail without it ever ringing your phone or you can block them altogether with a "spoofed" fake disconnect, which will make them think you disconnected your phone. The fake disconnect is not good for creditors or CA's because then they will try reaching you elsewhere.

As long as all of the CA's and what not are leaving you messages, they will think they have your main contact #.

A good friend of mine did this right before he defaulted on all of his credit cards. He logged into all of his bank accounts on-line and changed his phone # to his new Google Voice #. He used to get up to 20-30 calls per day and 100% of them went to voice mail. He said he was always terrified to pick up the phone. Now his phone never rings unless it's somebody he knows. He thanks me on a regular basis for telling him about this.

Enjoy!!

[pcn]

We are very new to all of this. My dh and I have never missed any CC payments or house payments, and cannot file until we have our attorney fees as they require payment before filing so we are attempting to sell my dhs truck to get the money to pay the fees.Thanks!

Could you take out a loan against your husband's truck, making it secured debt and protected, in order to pay the atty fees? After you file you may have more $ to allow paying that secured debt back, and secured debt is better for your means test results. Just a thought.