What do you tell creditors?

[bluemartini]

When I first defaulted, I did take a few calls from OC's and after being insulted, shamed and talked down to, I decided not to ever answer the phone EVER AGAIN unless I know who is calling.

Kudos to those who are able to talk back to the debt collectors, but I think I am too thin skinned for that. I still remember some of the ugly comments that were said to me over a year ago.... no thanks.


[\QUOTE=debtmonster;325631]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..."

[/QUOTE]

LOLOLOL! Now that is funny!

[bluemartini]

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!!

Thanks for explaining this, debtmonster. I had heard of Google voice but wasn't sure what the benefit could be. Sounds like a great deal.

[shabam]

Most of the VOIP telephone companies (like vonage) have great features regarding this sort of thing. Google voice is similar but you don't actually get a phone service. I basically filtered my calls to ensure only my friends and relatives calls got through to me. The rest went to voicemail.

[MSbklawyer]

1. Turn your speakers up on your computer.

2. Go here: http://www.crocopuffs.com/soundboard/southpark.html

or here: http://www.aeonity.com/ab/soundboard...ling-blade.php

3. Hold the phone up to your speakers.

4. Use your imagination

5. Have fun.

"You WILL respect my authoritah!!"

"They turned me aloose from the nervous hospital. Said I was well. Mmmmhmmm."

[debtmonster]

Thanks for explaining this, debtmonster. I had heard of Google voice but wasn't sure what the benefit could be. Sounds like a great deal.

It's the BEST deal because it's FREE!!! I would pay for a service like this.

That South Park thing is COOL!!! That's another great idea to deal with CA's!!

[LimpDisc]

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.

[Chowder]

This is a district/Trustee specific scenario that would absolutely not fly in my area. I wish it did.

To fully perfect the lien, a financial statement would also have to be filed with the secretary of state.

[pcn]

To fully perfect the lien, a financial statement would also have to be filed with the secretary of state.

Can you explain more about this financial statement? Here in AL the title is sent to the state, which adds the lienholder to the title, and then mails the modified title to the lienholder. That is how the lien is perfected. Where are you located?

[iv65536]

1. Turn your speakers up on your computer.

2. Go here: http://www.crocopuffs.com/soundboard/southpark.html

or here: http://www.aeonity.com/ab/soundboard...ling-blade.php

3. Hold the phone up to your speakers.

4. Use your imagination

5. Have fun.

"You WILL respect my authoritah!!"

"They turned me aloose from the nervous hospital. Said I was well. Mmmmhmmm."

Me? I'm kinda partial to this: http://www.cnbc.com/id/18724672/

[killinstinct]

Generally speaking, it will be at least six months without payment before a creditor takes legal action. All they can do is call and harass you.

And if you tell them to stop, or send them a certified letter telling them to stop, they have to stop or you can report them to the FTC for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practicies Act. I had this happen with Cap 1 and once I complained to the FTC they stopped immeidately.

[weRN2deep]

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

OMG They did that to me too... chased my balance for the last 2 years, and everyone I was in 'good' with joined the team and universally defaulted me. Until AMEX messed with me I was actually getting a little bit of my ccdebt paid down. We have a saying in our house F.AMEX!!!

[killinstinct]

Yes. Any guilt you may feel about filing quickly goes out the window once you see how awful the banks are once you're late. They go out of their way to quickly bury you and harass you mercilessly. Doesn't matter if you've been with them 20 years or 2 months.

[debtmonster]

Yes. Any guilt you may feel about filing quickly goes out the window once you see how awful the banks are once you're late. They go out of their way to quickly bury you and harass you mercilessly. Doesn't matter if you've been with them 20 years or 2 months.

This is making me happier about filing bankruptcy!!

[bktmom28]

I too was feeling really guilty about filing. I just had never thought in a million years we would be in this position. We never missed a CC payment, never missed a mtg payment, but once we realized that we had exhausted all of our resources and that neither our mortgage company or the CC companies were going to ever help us, it was our last resort. Every single one of our credit card companies dropped our limits to within $250. Our payments shot up and so did our interest rates. When I called to ask for relief, they pretty much laughed at me and told me that due to economic state of affairs, there was nothing that they could do. Now I tell them, that due to our economic state of affairs, there is nothing that we can do. I will be so relieved when this is over. We sold my husbands truck this past weekend. Now all we have to do is pay our attorney fees and we will get this ball rolling. I am ecstatic! Never thought I would be in this position, but I am so thankful that it is an option. Otherwise, I don't know what we would do.

[LimpDisc]

Nice to read that so many other people are in the same situation. We were doing good at paying down our debt until they took away any remaining credit we had left and rasied interest rates to 25% or more. They closed accounts and dropped available credit on nearly every card. We had already pretty much quit using the cards and looked at remaining credit as emergency funds only. Now with nothing left for emergency funds, we decided enough with this crap. Once we get BK filed in December our money that was used to pay our CC's will be put toward an emergency fund savings account.