Ignoring The Credit Card Companies Calling

[fltoo]

No one has that answer. Chase/Am Exp are very aggressive.

I am in month 11 and only Chase has sued me.

[ssdsco]

Appreciate the help...

How many months (in general) will the creditors call before they actually seek legal action?

I'm trying to see how many months I can hold out prior to actually filing.

I'm understand there are different answers depending on each specific case.

Thank you.

In the year I've been following this forum I've only heard of Chase, local banks/creditors and credit unions taking legal action in less than a year. Your mileage may vary.

If legal action is taken you should have at least a couple months to file BK from the time the summons is delivered to your door until wage/bank account garnishment starts. You should confirm by checking your local laws/procedures.

[Lajazz947]

I guess I better get ready for Chase to come after me.

They are not my largest creditor but the one with the most cards.

[BKORNOBK]

I understand the YMMV part---thanks everybody for providing a feel for how things work.

You've all been very generous in helping fellow members here.

In the year I've been following this forum I've only heard of Chase, local banks/creditors and credit unions taking legal action in less than a year. Your mileage may vary.

If legal action is taken you should have at least a couple months to file BK from the time the summons is delivered to your door until wage/bank account garnishment starts. You should confirm by checking your local laws/procedures.

[overwhelmed79]

In the year I've been following this forum I've only heard of Chase, local banks/creditors and credit unions taking legal action in less than a year. Your mileage may vary.

If legal action is taken you should have at least a couple months to file BK from the time the summons is delivered to your door until wage/bank account garnishment starts. You should confirm by checking your local laws/procedures.

I'm glad to hear that, as I haven't paid a credit card bill in 3 months and I have to wait 6 months for my divorce to be finalized before I file for BK. The debt is all mine and I don't want the BK to ruin the ex's credit.

[Charles245]

You can send a letter in writing to the credit card company telling them to stop contact with you and let them know of your situation. If its a collection agency you should do the same thing. there are some good sample letters on this site www.consumercounselgroup.com ... just go to the letter section. You can sue the collection agencies if they don't stop calling you and you have written them to stop.

[treehugger1]

I don't think it ever hurts to ask creditors or CA's to tone it down a bit. The other day, in the span of a five minutes I had a creditor call my cell 5 times. This is a creditor that I had a temporary one-year agreement with and I believe they want to return to the original agreement as the year is close to being up.

The fifth time, I answered the phone and calmly told the representative that I can only afford what "I can afford." I also told them that I considered repeated calls within a few minutes to be harrassment. She said she was sorry but I needed to come up with a "new" plan, and until I did they (creditor) had every right to continue to call. I simply replied that I understand their rights, but they also need to be aware that a constant barrage of phone calls to my cell phone also constitutes an infringement on my rights under federal and state telecommunications laws, and this is a completely separate issue than their right to attempt to collect on a debt. I ended the conversation by politely telling the caller that I will begin to answer every call and provide the same information while I record the conversation. Now, they seem to call about every-other day. I record every conversation after informing them I am doing so. I suspect that they will eventually charge-off the account even if I continue to pay, but not pay as agreed under the original contract.

I don't know what is worse, letting your debt go to collections and using the federal C&D, or working up a partial payment agreement and have them calling you more often just "In case your situation has changed."

All-in-All, if you are needing to buy time to file, it is probably in your best interest to occasionally answer the calls and be very cordial and humble. This seems to soothe many creditors. Collection agencies are, however, a different story.

[GoingDown]

I'm 13 months into the 2 year wait to file plan. I had 20+ creditors, $200k+ in debt. I was dealing with all the major credit card companies and now all the sleazy collection agencies/Law office of....

You have many options but here's what I did -

- I have never talked to a CC or CA.

- I made sure all CCs, CA's have my correct address and home phone number.

- The greeting on our home phone clearly identifies our first and last names.

- I did this so the creditors would know where to reach me and not call anyone looking for us. Never had a call to any relative, neighbor, etc

- Asked my family, friends, doctors, dentists, etc to call me on my cell phone.

- Turned the ringer off on the home phone and everything went to voice mail.
Every couple days I checked the caller-ids and messages on the home phone for calls other than creditors. From about month 3 since last payment through month 7 I was getting calls every 5-10 minutes from 8am-9pm. My VM would fill up after a couple hours and the poor CC's couldn't leave a message. Rarely was there an actual message though.

- At about month 6-7 most of the CC's were offering deals for 30-60 cents on the dollar. If I wanted to settle and take the tax hit I would have started the negotiations at 5 cents on the dollar offering to pull funds from my assets that are exempt from judgment and BK.

- About month 6-8 since last payment everything went to CA's. You get a letter from each CA informing you they're now collecting the debt and you have 30 days to request a debt validation.

- I sent a certified letter to all CA's requesting a debt validation, told them all communication had to be via mail, no phone calls, and informed them I was planning to file BK and I don't have any significant non-exempt assets from judgment or BK. Almost all the debt has move to a 2nd, 3rd, CAs. I send the a letter to each new CA.

- I don't get any calls. The home phone ringer is back. Probably the calm before the storm. It's almost as if the debt just disappeared.

- At month 13 it looks like the friendly folks at Cohen and Slamashits are suing me for one off my smallest debts. They sent me a copy of a summons via regular mail that has not been officially served yet. I’ll probably let them get a default judgment and have it removed when I file BK next year. I do have to figure out a way to prevent them from getting my pension money in my checking account.

Considering all the debt I’m looking to discharge even the hassle of waiting two years to properly plan my BK has been a small price to pay.

Knowledge is power. Lot's of good info in the collections forum stickys.

This is very similar what happened to me. At a certain point, in my case several years after not making any payments, the phone calls cease, and it gets very quiet. And I had a lot of debt from a lot of different credit card companies. There are only a few junk debt buyers and a few third party collection agencies who ever try to contact me anymore-- and they very rarely even bother trying to contact me. They all have been told by me that I am VERY JUDGMENT PROOF, and most of them seem to have lost any real hope of collecting anything at all from me, so they have given up. One did file a lawsuit against me and won a default judgment for a relatively small amount. They have not been able to collect even one cent of that judgment and in another few years it will be beyond the statute of limitations for Arizona judgments unless they renew it. I'm curious to see if they bother to renew it. I personally doubt it. It hasn't done them any good so far. Even they don't bother to call me anymore. If they do renew it, I will consider filing Chapter 7 BK. But I'm hoping that if I wait long enough all of the debts will be beyond Arizona statute of limitations and will be worthless, and I won't have had to do anything of spend any money on attorneys or bankruptcy or anything. I have no real estate, no checking account, no savings account, no stocks, bonds, etc., and no wages to garnish (I get paid by paper checks from temporary jobs, cash them and then use cash and money orders and pre-paid visa debit cards for everything I buy or pay. They can't get my money.). They have been unable to get me to pay anything, and I feel some satisfaction in it.

[AngelinaCatHub]

Clap, Clap, Clap, Going down. Exactly what we will do. 'Hub

[GoingDown]

Clap, Clap, Clap, Going down. Exactly what we will do. 'Hub

Oh, are you going the judgment proof way instead of filing bk?

I know it's certainly not for everyone, but for some people, it seems to work fine.

The creditors can spin their wheels, spend lots of money on court fees and attorney fees, and still not get anything.

I didn't even bother going to the court hearing because I knew I would lose anyways. I didn't spend a penny fighting against it because I knew they wouldn't be able to get anything from me anyways. And so far, they haven't bothered to call me in for a judgment debtor's exam. If they do, I'll attend it. It still won't help them because I just do temporary jobs, so there's nothing for them to garnish. And they can't come inside my rented house to look for anything because under Arizona law, even the sheriff has no right of entry into a person's home for a civil matter, such as enforcing a judgment. limitations.

If I wait long enough it will be beyond the statute of

[krispy12]

What month do the calls start slowing down? I haven't made cc payments for 3 months & the calls are still going strong. I did talk to a few of the cc companies one day & the calls slowed down considerably but started back up again.

[ssdsco]

What month do the calls start slowing down? I haven't made cc payments for 3 months & the calls are still going strong. I did talk to a few of the cc companies one day & the calls slowed down considerably but started back up again.

From my experience it will take one of the following to slow down the calls -

- retain an attorney and give the creditors your attorney's info.

- file BK and give the creditors your BK info.

- when the debt xfers to outside collection agencies/attorneys exercise your rights and send them a letter to stop calling.

[krispy12]

Once I send letters to outside collection agencies, will they still be able to call people I know trying to get in touch with me?

Also, won't it escalate them trying to sue me if I don't talk to them?

Since I'm judgement proof (have no assets & job now) & live in Texas (no wage garnishments) would that mean I don't really have much to worry about in case they sue me? (Everything I read says I shouldn't even show up to court if they do sue because I have nothing).

[BigJohn]

Who knows?

As for me, in 1996 I went thru a divorce and got strapped with a lot of CC debt. I didn't answer any calls. Actually I moved and they didn't find out where I was living for the most part, so I never talked to the creditors.

They did nothing.

[fltoo]

My experience if it helps...

I stopped all payments Sept. 07. Countrywide has still not foreclosed.

All the creditors stopped calling. Chase sued for a judgment and got it, then tried to garnish an old checking account, but withdrew it when they found out the account had been closed for over a year.

Chase still calls every day. I told them that there is no money and that I stupidly cashed in every retirement fund, home equity, etc.

My debt is due to a failed business but all cc were guaranteed by me personally, of course.

I spoke to the cc companies when they called. All were very nice until one account went to an outside collector, who was downright nasty. I found that talking to them slowed down the calls.