Over 10 months of non payment

[DYLAN150]

I owe 8 major banks and have received one lawsuit. The lawsuit was receive back in Sept. I sent them a declaration of my assets and income exempt from garnishment, which includes everything I own. I have yet to hear anything from them. I check the court records daily ( on line) so far so good. I have been contacted by four major collection agencies and have asked them for debt validation. Have receive nothing from them. Two of the collection agencies were 3 months ago. Is this pretty normal?

[GoingDown]

Are you still getting a lot of phone calls from the various collection agencies they use? I got a lot of phone calls for the first year after charge off, and then one by one, they fell silent. And most of them sold off the debts to junk debt buyers during that year, usually a month or two after charge off.

And yes, it often takes them months to "verify" a debt. But don't be surprised if some of them, especially the junk debt buyers like LVNV to come back quickly with a simple paragraph stating that they bought the debt from the original creditor and the amount of the debt at that time (not what they paid) and the date of the purchase.

[DYLAN150]

Yes, I still get some phone calls, I have blocked some. But Dell is the worst, call's 5 times a day from various locations.

[GoingDown]

Why can't you block them from calling, too?

Have you tried sending them a cease and desist communications letter? Original creditors are not subject to the FDCPA, but most of them voluntarily follow it anyways. Most of them will stop calling you on the phone if you put it in writing to them.

Another thing to consider is getting a google voice number and then call Dell from your new google voice number and let them know this is your new phone number, and then leave a voicemail message just for them that lets them know they have the correct number when they start calling it.

And finally, if the phone calls are just too much to stand, dump that old phone number all together and get a new phone number. And in the future, route everything through google voice, so you can more effectively screen your phone calls.

[treehugger1]

I think long periods of no action is standard as CA's receive DV requests and the accounts get returned to the OC or passed off to another CA.

In the beginning there were a lot of soft pulls on my credit reports, but now there is only the occasional soft pull by a JDB. I think that having my defaulted student loans show as one of the first items on my CR is helpful. The statements are, "Student loan permanently assigned to government. Being paid by garnishment." This is probably pretty telling to CA's and JDB's.

I stopped receiving calls after charge offs. Currently, I only receive calls from the occasional 2nd or 3rd tier JDB. Things are relatively quiet. I will be interested in seeing if activity will pick up, as many of my accounts get close to the SOL 12 - 16 months from now.

Google voice has also been my friend! Once you have a google voice number and change your phone number but only give out the GV number, you are in control of who gets passed through to your phone. The nice thing is that you get to choose what number GV passes calls to. So, if you want to use the best deal trac or temporary cell phones, you don't have to keep notifying friends, family, etc. They simply keep using your GV number.

[DYLAN150]

Tree: What credit report do you pull that show's soft Pull's?

[treehugger1]

All three show two types of inquiries. Inquiries that can be viewed by others and inquiries that are only viewed by you. The latter is the one that other inquirers cannot see; at least in theory. LOL If you use one of the 3-credit scams (truecredit, etc), they don't seem to sort out the two types of credit inquiries. I pulled my free reports the other day and interestingly enough, there only only about a half-dozen hard inquiries in the past two years. The JDB's, judgment creditors', etc inquiries all show as inquiries viewed only by me. based on the two-year rule for hard inquiries, I will be down to only 3-4 showing in a few months.

[GoingDown]

All three show two types of inquiries. Inquiries that can be viewed by others and inquiries that are only viewed by you. The latter is the one that other inquirers cannot see; at least in theory. LOL If you use one of the 3-credit scams (truecredit, etc), they don't seem to sort out the two types of credit inquiries. I pulled my free reports the other day and interestingly enough, there only only about a half-dozen hard inquiries in the past two years. The JDB's, judgment creditors', etc inquiries all show as inquiries viewed only by me. based on the two-year rule for hard inquiries, I will be down to only 3-4 showing in a few months.

I think the same thing-- debt collectors see every pull, hard or soft. It really doesn't matter. They're both bad if you're trying to avoid debt collectors from finding info about you.

And always remember, the credit reporting agencies are NOT on our side. They work for the creditors and debt collectors. NOT us!

[shark66]

And always remember, the credit reporting agencies are NOT on our side. They work for the creditors and debt collectors. NOT us!

Words of true wisdom indeed...

I just wish more people would understand this fact...

Good luck to us all.

[DYLAN150]

My life is pretty much a open book. My address and phone numbers on are my credit reports along with occuption as retired. I have a lease car, no rv's, no boats, no time shares, no motorcycles, no jewlely stores loans, nothing of value recorded on the reports. Current home loan is underwater, so what are they going to do? Can't garnished my wages. No bank account. My household belongings and tools are all under the exemptions here in Washington state. Guess they can just bug me to death.

[DYLAN150]

I was thinking when I started this ordeal that I would get alot of letters and cert. letters. I have not received one cert. letter and actually very few letters at all. No emails at all. No cell phone calls.

[GoingDown]

I was thinking when I started this ordeal that I would get alot of letters and cert. letters. I have not received one cert. letter and actually very few letters at all. No emails at all. No cell phone calls.

The creditors NEVER sent me any certified letters.

They did send me some letters threatening "legal action" and saying "this is my last chance to take care of this matter voluntarily", etc., but by regular mail.

We did receive some letters sent by U.P.S. for a certain deceased relative with an insolvent estate, because we were ignoring all their other letters. Nothing ever came of it.

They also never emailed me. I would sometimes email them a cease and desist communications letter, and it worked, but they would never email me back.

I got lots of landline calls and unfortunately, they found my cell phone number (thanks to relatives giving it to them after they posed as long lost friends trying to find me), before I wised up and started using google voice for everything, and dumped the old cell phone number.

[debtprison]

If you have nothing on paper (even better if you really do have nothing) other than debt in practice it's rare for a creditor to push to sue. It makes little sense to throw away good money to chase bad money.

I've owed money for many years and not once have I been sued. Not once.

[DYLAN150]

I have a house that in under water to speak. In other words, I have a house that I owe on more than I could sell for. Other than the house, nothing, I lease my car.