What do you tell creditors?

[killinstinct]

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.

Good plan. Sounds like so many people are better able to deal with BK nowdays...there's so much of it going on!! We're not deadbeats or flakes, we're good, hardworking people who have fallen on hard times. The law was intended to protect us!

We quit using CC's almost a year ago and began aggressively paying down debt. HOWEVER, income fell, expenses went up. As others have stated our CC limits fell and interest rates increased for no reason. The CC companies would do nothing to help when you called. I was already planning on filing, but when I found out Chase was going to double their minimum payments on CC's, I was sure glad we were prepared. That would have pushed us over the edge if nothing else (we had 3 cards with them).

[debtmonster]

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.

* HIGH FIVE * on that (re: item in bold!)

SMART THINKING! Good job.

[ForumReader]

* HIGH FIVE * on that (re: item in bold!)

SMART THINKING! Good job.

Yep, I agree. Whoever fed the idea to the creditors to raise minimums, lowered credit limits, raised interest rates, etc was/were brilliant. These creditors have got to thank the geniuses for that. When I was at my attorney's office, the paralegal pulled up my name to print out the post filing counseling certificate, he scrolled down many pages to get to my name from the computer. That told me alot more than we think out there are now filing for BK.

[debtmonster]

When I was seeing my attorney for the initial consultation, he had 2 large waiting rooms loaded with people all waiting to see him. There was a lot of well-to-do people who came in wanting to file or coming in to bring in additional documentation for their cases.

[killinstinct]

When I was seeing my attorney for the initial consultation, he had 2 large waiting rooms loaded with people all waiting to see him. There was a lot of well-to-do people who came in wanting to file or coming in to bring in additional documentation for their cases.

My wife and I found an attorney we were comfortable with several months ago. The first couple times we went to see him he was in the back office (still pretty nice) of this building, sharing with another lawyer.

Last month when I dropped off the last few items for our 341 I was surprised to see a note on the door that he had moved, directing me down the hall to one of the HUGE office suites at the front of the building. That place was like grand central station. There were dozens of people in there, the phone was ringing off the hook, all the meeting rooms were full. It was amazing.

[iv65536]

I went for an initial consultation as well - the firm I found is a one-attorney operation, no other staff. This attorney comes across as genuine, does not mince words about creditors, and even though I am not a lawyer, he is researching my ideas on our plan, including mortgage-related gambits.