Chapter 7 Filers: How many months behind in payments were you before you filed?

[bcohen]

My creditors started calling like crazy around the 40-day mark. They would call literally 5 to 6 times a day EACH, despite the fact that I told them each time that I lost my job and couldn't pay. Fortunately, the only telephone number which my creditors had was my cellphone, which I also quit paying, so when that got disconnected for nonpayment, the calls stopped! Every month or so, some creditor would call my parents' house, but they already know what's up, so they just say that they haven't seen me in years and don't give out any info.

[Pizza]

Out of curiosity, when in these timelines did your creditor calls get bad and when did they try contacting family/etc (if at all)?

Almost immediately!

[stray]

Stopped paying most CCs about 3 yrs before I finally stopped dreaming and filed. Had 1 judgement from Citibank after about 2yrs. Calls started from as early as 45 days and got worse from there. I have relatives with land lines so they got calls too. Not sure when they started calling them, because they were embarrassed for me so I don't think told me right away. Of course Dad started a conversation, took the guys name, said he was a nice guy I should call him... I have a feeling that was why the date of last activity kept changing on various accts.

The most important thing and best advice I got here, is to file when you are ready. Make sure all of your planets are aligned.

[Floridagail]

I was 18mos behind on ccs, only one sued me capital One, so i filed. hubby is 30 mos now discover is suing so he is mostly filing soon.
One thing we did was go into our cc accounts online and remove our home phone and cells from their records shortly after we stopped paying. We still go calls like crazy just disconnected ringer. Good Luck.

[wdwgirl74]

That be us! We were in consumer credit counseling starting July 2012. Prior to that we paid minimum on all our credit cards on time. After finding out my entire dept at work was being eliminated I took a quick job offer at another company that turned out to be crappy as heck. Made me depressed and ill. I quit in Sept 2012. I cashed in my 401k and lived off it for 3 months hoping to find a job. I didn't so we filed for ch 7 in December 2012 using my last $1500 of my 401k to pay attorney. We stopped making payments to consumer credit counseling end of Nov and filed ch 7 a week later. We did not get ONE phone call from credit card companies. We have 2 car payments and have kept current with them both and will reaffirm them both since they are newer cars. Our 341 is jan 10. We have no house, we rent apt , and no other assets or properties. Just $25,000 in unsecured debt. I managed to get a job right before we filed that is an indefinite temp position. No benefits and at about $10/hr less than what I was making. So all that factored into our decision to file. I think I'm more upset about only being able to get a temp job with no benefits than I am about our 341 meeting coming up! LOL😋!

[Eguy]

I filed about 6 months after they went to collections. It took collections about a year to catch up with me. All total it was about 2 and a half years before I filed. I knew I was going to file, it was just a matter of when. I reaffirmed the debt with my credit union and the rest went into the 7. I filed in August of 2012 and was discharged in Nov. 2012. We had suffered a 40% loss of income and foreclosure, (deed in lieu), then in Oct. 2012 I got a promotion in my job which made up the 40 % loss of income and now our motto is, save, save, save, no credit, run the cars into the junk yard and keep on saving. I live in a house that a friend owns, and is trying to sell, nearly rent free we have been there for 4 months, it was empty for 3 months and I expect he won't sell soon because he's priced way too high and owes way too much on it. If it sells in the spring, I'll find a place. There are plenty of homes to rent in my area.

[obwnlink]

I was 6 months behind in CC payments and 7 months behind on the mortgage when I filed. Creditors started calling after being about a month behind in payments.

[heartheart]

I was only about 4 months behind at the date of my filing. I got lots of calls and some nasty letters, but that's about it.

[dina13]

We stopped paying cards in Nov. 2010, and got summons from Capital One in May 2012, which caused us to file this June. So it was about a year and a half for us. We are self-employed though. They were just calling, but we turned off the ringer, and basically went on with our lives. I decided that only summons is worth paying attention to, everything else (calls, letters) I pretty much ignored. This greatly helped me in keeping my sanity.

[Eguy]

I have to make a correction, in looking at my papers last night I filed in August 2011 and was discharged in March 2012. I don't know how I came up with the November date.

[ksgirl38]

I made my last credit card payments in April and filed in July so I saw minimal effects to my credit score. It took a dive, but two weeks after discharge I was able to get a credit card with no fees and a $2000 limit. Every case is different.

[BROKEDED]

We stopped making payments November 2009. Filed Ch 7 March 2011. Closed and discharged July 2011. Foreclosed in February 2012. Last day to be out was middle of March 2012.

[tobee43]

we were well over 2 years but that was our mortgage. we left the state and literary went underground...we continued to pay , against atty's advise all cc's up until the last "legal" minute. we retained a bank account in our old state with bare min. in them to make those payments. we had reasons to do that which i won't get into now, however, it did affect our over all outcome. our credit scores were not hit as badly as the cc's companies had no time to report late payments. i mean, really, it doesn't matter in the end, we had our mortgage IIB, a car we surrendered, and by the way, it reads just that way on our credit report..."voluntarily surrendered", just a nicer to say, since we handed them over the car, they used those words as opposed to the word re-possession.

let's face it tho, a bk is a bk and your credit is effected for 10 years either way you look at it. we didn't get any calls since we had no phone they could find under our names, nor address for that matter. our daughter was being contacted and i know our old neighbors were also, which just confused the creditors further as i told every neighbor i spoke with before i left that we were moving to a different state, one thought we were in montana, while one thought we were in washington...etc.