Please help- I have a question

[jman]

ok- im about to file for chapter 7 on march 1,2011. Im both nervous and excited at the same time. I really want to establish credit back as soon as possible therfore i have not yet paid any credit cards late yet up until this point and do not want my credit report to show any 30 day lates SOOOOO my question is this: do the credit card companies stopr reporting wether im late or not the day i FILE for chapter 7 or do they stop reporting me to the credit agencies AFTER MY DISCHARGE?? basically i want to know if i should keep paying until i file or until i am discharged to avaoid any lates on my credit report. PLEASE HELP and by the way i love the support this site shows. its very helpful

[debee]

Creditors are required to report the accounts as $0 IIB (included in bankruptcy) as of your filing date (presuming you ultimately recieve the discharge).

[jman]

Thank you for the quick response. SO your saying that they will NOT report me late anytime after the date i File which will be next week? IF thats that case im going to stop paying now because i cant affod to pay anyway and if i know that no lates will be reported from now until the time my case is discharged then i am feeling much better about all of this. Plese let me know if i am understanding you right

[debee]

You understand. They can't report something that isn't true. If they do, you can challenge it and prevail. So, if you have paid on time and as agreed right up to your filing date, your accounts are supposed to be reported as $0 IIB.

It's common for creditors to report incorrectly post-bk, but you can get it sorted out once you receive your discharge. Lots of helpful threads on credit clean-up as well.

[tcreegan]

Hi debee! Hi jam

Once you decide to file BK, that is the day your stop paying the bill(s) on anything that is going to be discharged Anymore $ thrown on these accounts might as well be flushed down commode. If you want to keep a car or house, keep those payments current, but only those.

All your open-tradelines get labeled as "included in BK" with a zero balance. At this point, having kept current gets you 10-20 points to your score. Having the BK on the record, your score plumments 200-250 points. So you spend all that money to get a 560 instead of a 540.

If you take the $$ you would have used in your losing fight to keep the credit cards current, what if you took that money and acquired some secured credit lines after the BK....that would add 25, 50, 100 pts or more to your score.

Then you start a full scale credit report clean-up. Depending on how bad they were to start, this can get 50, 100, 150 points back

So save the time and money for credit report clean up and to open new lines of credit. Using this path, people have been able to get into the upper 600's easily within the year and with more effort people are reporting scores in the upper 700's.

SO if you live and die by your credit score (might want to examine that obession w/ a licensed therapist) DO a thorough clean-up, start a few lines of credit. Put a little bit on the cards each month and pay it all off w/ an on-time payment.

Well, good luck to you on this, its past my bedtime so if this sounds like incoheret babbling, that why ...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Tom in Colo ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[tobee43]

Hi debee! Hi jam

Once you decide to file BK, that is the day your stop paying the bill(s) on anything that is going to be discharged Anymore $ thrown on these accounts might as well be flushed down commode. If you want to keep a car or house, keep those payments current, but only those.

All your open-tradelines get labeled as "included in BK" with a zero balance. At this point, having kept current gets you 10-20 points to your score. Having the BK on the record, your score plumments 200-250 points. So you spend all that money to get a 560 instead of a 540.

If you take the $$ you would have used in your losing fight to keep the credit cards current, what if you took that money and acquired some secured credit lines after the BK....that would add 25, 50, 100 pts or more to your score.

Then you start a full scale credit report clean-up. Depending on how bad they were to start, this can get 50, 100, 150 points back

So save the time and money for credit report clean up and to open new lines of credit. Using this path, people have been able to get into the upper 600's easily within the year and with more effort people are reporting scores in the upper 700's.

SO if you live and die by your credit score (might want to examine that obession w/ a licensed therapist) DO a thorough clean-up, start a few lines of credit. Put a little bit on the cards each month and pay it all off w/ an on-time payment.

Well, good luck to you on this, its past my bedtime so if this sounds like incoheret babbling, that why ...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Tom in Colo ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

not sleeping well tom.......count some lama...LOL!!!

jman......we did the exact same thing...for a number of reasons...our credit score at the time or re-establishing it, was also on the list of why to continue the payment the best we could.

as a result...here's how it effected our credit after our discharge.....one of us had a fico score of 680 and the other (me)..if i remember was at 665 or so. why....??? because as debee pointed out they can't report something that is not true...we easily got credit cards ...literaly instantly after our discharge in hopes of re-building our credit. we wanted one day to be able to buy a house and new car if needed as everyone else does.

the final results for us was this.........your BK listing is going to drop you no matter what you paid or didn't pay......looking back, i wish i hadn't paid them (the credit card companies) a dime!!! i should have saved all that money!!!

however, what appeared more important was our 40 year perfect credit history when we applied for new or post bk card....that's what helped and i can't say that it wasn't good that we had NO cards past 90 days...i'm not certain.

our main reason of course to re-build our credit was to be able in the future to buy a house and get a mortgage....well..we did and we are not even 2 years out......we went around the banks and did a owner financing....and if we need a car we are going to us what we have saved and NOT a dime more...

and even though we got cards...and now have a few thousand dollars credit...we completely STOPPED using any cards for the suppose of rebuilding our credit...(as many on this site suggest using them to rebuild your credit)...this is just my personal view, but i believe TIME...is what will help you get back your feet.

best of luck to you!

[tcreegan]

....ooops, forgot an important point: using and paying off cards by itself doesn't help. You do that so you can ask for a higher limit, which does help.