Collection Strategy

[late49er]

Hello Everyone,

about 6 months ago a close friend of mine lost his job and I could tell would have a real problem getting on his feet. Age 57. His finances were a mess and it was inevitable that bankruptcy was in his future.

Anyway I offered him a place to stay and recommended he hide out for a while and let his debts age out so bankruptcy would be easier.

I had him change his address to a place in North Carolina that we found on the internet and gave his new employment as a bowling alley in Charlotte. He applied for a few credit cards with the new information and moved in.

He has received no contact from the 12 credit companies he owed money to. Over 100k and filed for bankruptcy last week.

He has had 6 months to get his life together and find some peace. he just finished a program to help him with a drinking problem and he seems to be doing well.

I can`t say this is a good strategy for everyone but it seems to me that once a person blows up they need to heal, and collection folks are well just trash. They do nothing but hurt people who have already been hurt enough.

There is a lot to be said for simply dropping off the matrix for a while, filing bankruptcy and getting on with life.

[catleg]

I'm sure the people at the bowling alley are very, very confused!

[treehugger1]

I had him change his address to a place in North Carolina that we found on the internet and gave his new employment as a bowling alley in Charlotte. He applied for a few credit cards with the new information and moved in.

Be careful of commiting any fraudulent activity.

[tobee43]

i actually know two attorney's that advised to try to put as much time between your last spending and your filing date...i guess there are different ways to do it. we just told all the collectors ...too bad...see ya later.....in court. finally we just blocked all the calls etc.


now...how to hide may be a different story...LOL!

[HHM]

I had him change his address to a place in North Carolina that we found on the internet and gave his new employment as a bowling alley in Charlotte. He applied for a few credit cards with the new information and moved in .

That is questionable part of the strategy. He applied for NEW credit using a phantom address and lied about employment.

[catleg]

Yeah, if a bank was stupid enough to grant him credit, he could get in trouble.

But I understand why he did it, and it's funny, but it was probably unnecessary.

[late49er]

Hello Everyone,

Good points.

Have to admit that if anyone sent a credit card to the new address that would be a problem. But given his credit was exploding anyway the chance of that was small.

Just giving the banks a little extra work to do.

Imagine this would only work for a while anyway. By then the bankruptcy takes over.

[tobee43]

i could or would think, if they look very carefully they may consider this "fraud".

while, i understand the legal aspect of proving fraud may be difficult in many cases, they may give this one a questionable look?

hhm, please correct me if i'm wrong, but the court would have to prove "intent"?

so most likely they could ask....did you know you were using a fake address?
did you know you were making false statments on your bank card application? etc......

i don't know how many yes's are involved with proving the fraud...but i would speak to an attorney as how to precede.

[HHM]

i could or would think, if they look very carefully they may consider this "fraud".

while, i understand the legal aspect of proving fraud may be difficult in many cases, they may give this one a questionable look?

hhm, please correct me if i'm wrong, but the court would have to prove "intent"?

so most likely they could ask....did you know you were using a fake address?
did you know you were making false statments on your bank card application? etc......

i don't know how many yes's are involved with proving the fraud...but i would speak to an attorney as how to precede.

Not really, intent is NEVER (or I should say, very rarely) proved directly? Intent is proved circumstantially. For example, in a creditor objection to discharge of debt; the debtor is never asked, did you know...or why...(a 3rd year law school student would never ask that question). You prove intent based on actions and circumstances.

The line of questioning would be something like this...
When did you fill out the credit application
xx/xx/xx
Were you employed at the time you filed out application
no
Were you receiving any source of income at xx/xx/xx
no
Did you state on that application that you were employed at X bowling alley?
yes.
Have you ever been paid by X bowling alley
no
Do you presently work at X bowling alley
no
On xx/xx/xx date did you work at X bowling alley.
no
Have you ever worked at x bowling alley
no

This line of questioning gets the facts that the person intentionally lied on the credit app., hence, fraud. Fraud is proved inferentially, you uncover the bad "act" and the court "infers" the fraud.

[tobee43]

[

QUOTE=HHM;442013]Not really, intent is NEVER (or I should say, very rarely) proved directly? Intent is proved circumstantially. For example, in a creditor objection to discharge of debt; the debtor is never asked, did you know...or why...(a 3rd year law school student would never ask that question). You prove intent based on actions and circumstances.

The line of questioning would be something like this...
When did you fill out the credit application
xx/xx/xx
Were you employed at the time you filed out application
no
Were you receiving any source of income at xx/xx/xx
no
Did you state on that application that you were employed at X bowling alley?
yes.
Have you ever been paid by X bowling alley
no
Do you presently work at X bowling alley
no
On xx/xx/xx date did you work at X bowling alley.
no
Have you ever worked at x bowling alley

no

so, in fact, this would be a perfect scenario of the possible questioning that could happened during the court procedings, correct?

thereby, even though circumstantial, if answered as your hypothetical example line of questions indicates, the outcome could be quite negative? hence, suggesting fraud?

[tobee43]

as a defense.... he could claim his actions were a result of his drinking problem, and show prove that he was spent time in rehab?

[BCA2009]

If you really wanted to spread a bunch of misinformation. Just join Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn, etc and a bunch of forums. Check he box that you will allow "promotions and Advertising" to be sent to you. Whatever address you give will have a ton of mail in about 2 days.

[late49er]

Hello Everyone,

The point is the strategy worked.

A good, decent human being is now on the road to getting his life back together.

What was avoided was 6 months of hell by an industry that could care less about its prey or the consequences of their actions.

If there is a distinction perhaps it is the credit/collection industry deals in criminal behavior that is legal while what was done here was perhaps illegal but ethical and the right thing to do.

At the end of the day I had rather be judged as someone who helped the underground railroad than one who turned the fugitives in to be returned to their masters.

Their masters can all kiss my confederate well you know.

Sorry to get animated in all of this but sometimes there are far more important things than the law. Things such as decency, fair play, and the welfare of our fellow human beings.

[HHM]

as a defense.... he could claim his actions were a result of his drinking problem, and show prove that he was spent time in rehab?

We can run endless "what if" scenarios.

The point is that to prove intent, you don't actually need to access the state of the mind of the individual. The goal of the person trying to prove fraud is to demonstrate that the bad acts occurred such that the actions could not be explained but for fraud.

The goal of the debtor is to try to mitigate that attack. Will a drinking problem work, probably not unless it was so severe that the person could prove that at the time, they had no idea what they were doing. Even then, you would probably need to call an expert and witnesses to corroborate the debtors story.

Keep in mind, intent is only one aspect of fraud. There still needs to be harm.
For example, if you misstated income on a credit app 3 years ago, got $5,000 limit, charged it, but made payments for 3 years, and then filed BK because you lost your job, that is not fraud. There was no harm to the creditor that was a direct result of the fraudulent act.

[tobee43]

late49er, i was just asking about how the court could possibly view such a situation.

to us it was like a big chess game...we just wanted to be careful with every single move we made, just so it didn't come back to bite us later.

personally, we did the same thing, however, we just used a "different' method to keep them all away from us.