Creditors calling family members

[HereInOhio]

Can they do this? I've seen some posts about them calling in-laws, but it looks as if those people had lived with them at one time or another.

We've never lived with other members of our families after we were married (or before unless you count while we were in high school).

DH's family is in Oregon and my family is 300 miles away. Not like they are around the corner.

I guess I'm just worried that they will call family. We are NOT telling my family about filing (in the process of looking for a lawyer as we just started thinking about it). But we didn't pay one credit card and 8 days after it was due, they have called us no less then 6 times (both on the house phone and on DH's cell).

Like I said, we haven't spoken with a lawyer yet but are planning on doing so. Hubby travels M-F so it's going to be hard to get in, but it will have to be done.....

Thanks guys!

[danaf]

oh yeah - they can and they will. Especially if they cannot get ahold of you.

They called my parents who are on the other side of the country. They don't care. Their goal is to speak to you to try to get you to pay up.

[sisterfunkhaus]

Yup they can. They called my sister-in-law's parent's house. I have no clue how they even found out their last name!!!! They aren't even related to us in any way. Luckily, we don't care. We are having trouble and if other people don't like it, tough. Worrying what others think got us into this mess. I figure the best way to get us out is to stop caring.

[HereInOhio]

So does anyone have a probably time line of when they start calling you?

Right now, it's just the one credit card that is calling us. So it's not the card, but the collector that makes these calls, right?

How long until an unpaid card goes to collections?

Sorry with the number of questions....I've never even been close to late on a payment before so I have no idea what happens.

[Runnin on empty]

Unfortunately, HereInOhio, each situation is individually different, there is no way of knowing how a creditor/debt collector will act. We had one creditor call my in-laws just once, so my wife told her parents that we had been getting calls for someone with the same name, ect.

It is quite an odd feeling, having always paid the bills on time, to suddenly just stop. It went against everything we believed in, but we knew that it was the right thing to do.

[JoeBlow]

They get your land line phone record and call anyone who you have called more than once.

[twinsplus14me]

How would they get phone records?

How would they possibly be able to get a copy of your phone records? Isn't that info only available for law enforcement?

Citigroup called my family today. We listed them as a reference when we applied for the loan. Luckily, my family all knows that we are going to give up the car. I just don't want them to get a lot of calls.

[HereInOhio]

They get your land line phone record and call anyone who you have called more than once.

Can they really do that??? That is just awful.....

[rfassett]

Before filing we were really making all of our payments, if not on time, at least within a couple of days of the due date. There is one creditor that just knock my socks off when they called and said "you are late with your payment". I immediately thought I forgot to pay it and was thinking it was like 20 to 30 days late. So I said, feeling guilty, "how late is it"? The response was "four days". Honestly, I was stunned and said "call me back when it gets to 20 days late" and hung up. (They didn't listen because then they called me every day until it was paid. I got a few days reprieve and then the fourth day came and the game started all over again.) I can not tell you how great it felt after we filed and I knew that we had passed that fourth day past the due date and I did not get a call. Anyway, we did not have any creditors call any relatives, to the best of my knowledge, primarily because we were able to anticipate the problems we were running into and filed immediately - even before very many things started going past due. To me that is the key, make the decision - and once made, don't look back, but rather, push hard to the end. Get it done - and move on!