calls just stopped!

[debtmonster]

Levy

I also am a Grand Central user, the best thing ever.

We are only 2 months late on payments, so there hasn't been that many calls.

We retained/paid an attorney, but don't want to file until the summer.

That Grand Central is SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET isn't it?

I give that number out TO EVERYONE. That thing is a total firewall (or Butler) for our real phone #. We never give the real phone # to anyone. All of the creditors have the Grand Central. All of our friends and family have our Grand Central #. I use the Grand Central for my business and everything. I block annoying people with it. It's a shame that the phone company doesn't offer all of these features that I get for free from Grand Central. I like their service but sometimes the calls sound like crap.

I don't remember if I posted it on here or not, but one of our 3 cars was repo'd on March 4th from GMAC. They sent me a letter letting me know that it was going to be auctioned off on the 22nd. I wrote them a letter telling them that we're broke. I even went to our bank account and made a printout showing them that we had $9 in out account so they could see for themselves.

What I want to know is how creditors can levy a bank account. I want the exact details on this. How is it possible for some other institution to simply get your banking info and E.F.T. the funds out and make you negative?

Can somebody post exactly how this can happen? Anybody here work in the banking industry?

[WhatMoney]

I think this is going off topic from "calls stopping", but anyway, a levy is a court approved garnishment of your account by your creditor after they have obtained a judgement. It is not an EFT.

A creditor just stealing money via EFT from your account can only be done if you at some time gave the creditor the permission to debit your account (meaning they would have the account #). Otherwise it is just theft. Of course the bank has no way of knowing this unless you file a complaint and can prove you never gave the creditor permission to a "self help collection" from your account. And the bank may only refund your money after ordered by a lawsuit. Consumers have little real protection unless you can afford a good attorney.

This is not to say your typical slimeball CA might not do it anyway if they have your account information. There are asset tracing businesses that a debt collector can hire to get almost any information about you and your accounts based on names, aliases, and SSN.

[debtmonster]

I have never give out any routing and account # for automatic payments for anyone to have this information. So what happens if you simply keep changing bank accounts? What do they do then? Or what if you have an account overseas? Does this only apply to US banks?

If they pull some stunt like this, they will make me end up defaulting on our mortgage. I only get paid one time per month. The money goes in, all of the electronic bill pays clean out about 95% of it by the next business day or so. Most of the time we have less than $50 in our account.

The only way I have ever gotten the calls to stop is with the cease and desist letters. The creditors would hound me every day until 90 days. Walls Fargo ragged on me hard last year when I could not make my $500/mo. car payments. Sometimes the phone would ring 4x per day. There's nothing I could do to stop them. They sent it to collections. I changed my phone # and got a Magicjack.com phone since a regular phone was too expensive. At least the MagicJack is $20/yr., not per month. That help cut our expenses down drastically and we still had phone service. Between them and Grand Central, it has put a lot of stress away until it's time to do Ch. 7.

[JRScott]

Yep might be the calm before the storm but if you are getting ready to file you should be fine .

[debtmonster]

Yep might be the calm before the storm but if you are getting ready to file you should be fine .

Not even close to being ready to file. I need to find out what I can keep vs. what I can't. I wish to God that a BK lawyer could simply come and visit us, look at everything we got here and say, "Yep... yep... nope... yep... nope..." and then have a list of what we keep and what we lose... or do we lose anything at all? Do you only lose what you owe creditors? What happens to stuff you've finally paid off but have as assets now? Does the court say, "You have to sell that and give us what you get" or do they come out and send somebody to come and take it all?

[systemslt]

Not even close to being ready to file. I need to find out what I can keep vs. what I can't. I wish to God that a BK lawyer could simply come and visit us, look at everything we got here and say, "Yep... yep... nope... yep... nope..." and then have a list of what we keep and what we lose... or do we lose anything at all? Do you only lose what you owe creditors? What happens to stuff you've finally paid off but have as assets now? Does the court say, "You have to sell that and give us what you get" or do they come out and send somebody to come and take it all?

a free visit to a bankruptcy lawyer will answer most of your major questions. i felt a a lot better after i did

[systemslt]

That Grand Central is SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET isn't it?

I give that number out TO EVERYONE. That thing is a total firewall (or Butler) for our real phone #. We never give the real phone # to anyone. All of the creditors have the Grand Central. All of our friends and family have our Grand Central #. I use the Grand Central for my business and everything. I block annoying people with it. It's a shame that the phone company doesn't offer all of these features that I get for free from Grand Central. I like their service but sometimes the calls sound like crap.

I don't remember if I posted it on here or not, but one of our 3 cars was repo'd on March 4th from GMAC. They sent me a letter letting me know that it was going to be auctioned off on the 22nd. I wrote them a letter telling them that we're broke. I even went to our bank account and made a printout showing them that we had $9 in out account so they could see for themselves.

What I want to know is how creditors can levy a bank account. I want the exact details on this. How is it possible for some other institution to simply get your banking info and E.F.T. the funds out and make you negative?

Can somebody post exactly how this can happen? Anybody here work in the banking industry?

have you been served a summons to "answer a complainant"
if not and your not in hiding i.e. "they cant find you to serve you" then you are safe. if you have been served a summons to "answer a complainant" you may only have weeks to defend your property.

a judgment must be awarded before a money or property can be taken. except in cases like repos

[JRScott]

Not even close to being ready to file. I need to find out what I can keep vs. what I can't. I wish to God that a BK lawyer could simply come and visit us, look at everything we got here and say, "Yep... yep... nope... yep... nope..." and then have a list of what we keep and what we lose... or do we lose anything at all? Do you only lose what you owe creditors? What happens to stuff you've finally paid off but have as assets now? Does the court say, "You have to sell that and give us what you get" or do they come out and send somebody to come and take it all?

Even if they started now, in most jurisdiction it would take around 90 days or so before they could get a judgment....

Just buckle down and get busy. First I'd recommend 3-5 visits to local BK attorneys. Find out what they think. Remember it isn't the value you paid for stuff, it is the value it is worth now.

[debtmonster]

Even if they started now, in most jurisdiction it would take around 90 days or so before they could get a judgment....

Just buckle down and get busy. First I'd recommend 3-5 visits to local BK attorneys. Find out what they think. Remember it isn't the value you paid for stuff, it is the value it is worth now.

I did. They want too much money and they didn't seem very helpful. It seems like all these people want is a quick buck for processing some data entry.

But the people coming for a judgement, can they take other property you have or just what you charged up? Like we bought stuff from Rooms to Go for over $4,000 for our livingroom furniture and dining room table. They would only come back for that. But no other unsecured card would come after us for other stuff we own now? We have nothing in the bank or stock market. I have no 401k, savings or anything financial of any kind. All I have is a ton of depreciating assets. All of the assets were expensive when new, but they are not worth even 50% of value when purchased new.

I just wish Florida was like other states and let you keep $20k of stuff.

[MajorMike]

Same thing here. I'm at about 8 months past due with 20 creditors for some big dollars. About 15 accounts have gone to CA's. I've requested debt validation from all over the past 3 months and told them to stop calling but it's strange they all stopped on approximately the same day.

Maybe they're all at a convention in Vegas running up thier credit cards on gambling and adult entertainment.

I would go nuts not paying for that long. 2-3 months is all I could stand and then file.
Why is everyone waiting so long?

[debtmonster]

I would go nuts not paying for that long. 2-3 months is all I could stand and then file.
Why is everyone waiting so long?

The lack of not having $1600 maybe? For others it could be more. I had one attorney in Boca Raton quote me $2200 back in the 1990's for a Ch. 7. I just ended up not doing it. I moved out of the state and kept bouncing around the country. I guess the creditors all gave up. After 7 years, all of the negative stuff fell off of my credit report and I started over without going bankrupt. I don't know why I never had any judgments.

I am either totally broke or totally making money. It all comes in spurts. I'll spend years getting back on my feet only to lose a job and then get in default on the rent, car payments, utilities, etc...

I have 2 repo's within the past 12 months and my Equifax score is now 559. I spoke to a car dealer yesterday and he said he was amazed that it was that high. I wanted to see about trading the car I have now for one with a lower payment. He said the only way to do that would be to put a big down payment. I said if I could do that, I would simply buy a used car for cash. I can afford small payments. I can't afford to pay in one lump sum for a used car. I also told him that if I were going to buy a $3,000 car, I would do it from an individual and not a dealer.

If I knew I could do Ch. 7 and go to a Buy Here Pay Here lot and buy a used car for $129/mo., I would do it tomorrow. I checked with the Buy Here Pay Here lots and asked them, "What happens if I had just filed bankruptcy yesterday?" He said the payments would be $400/mo. I told him, "That's more than I am paying now!! What's the point of going bankrupt then? I'm trying to save money, not spend more!" So then I'd end up spending $400 on somebody else's "USED" car vs. the one I bought brand new and know nothing is wrong with it, and still has the 100,000 mile factory warranty.

What I want to do is get like a $3,000 used car and make $129/mo. payments. How does one do this after going bankrupt?!?!?!

[justplaintired]

Phone calls have slowed here, still getting them just not 5-10 a day. We did hire our attorney and started forwarding calls to him. I think that might be why ours are fewer now. Although some have turned into CA now, and now we are getting letters. Hoping to file soon so this will end.

Yesterday a neighbor girl was here when Chase called! Caller ID pops up on the TV screen (dish network), it was totally embarrassing! She asked who it was, I ignored her!

[debtmonster]

Phone calls have slowed here, still getting them just not 5-10 a day. We did hire our attorney and started forwarding calls to him. I think that might be why ours are fewer now. Although some have turned into CA now, and now we are getting letters. Hoping to file soon so this will end.

Yesterday a neighbor girl was here when Chase called! Caller ID pops up on the TV screen (dish network), it was totally embarrassing! She asked who it was, I ignored her!

Yeah, a friend of mine has Direct TV and it shows the Caller ID on it like that. I never thought of a situation like yours where anyone could see the names of the callers advertised like that.

Why did you simply not change your phone #? I always did... or most of the time it was disconnected because I could not afford to pay it.