Like he never even existed

[2Bshinyandnew]

My soon to be ex filed a CH7 in late November 2008. Several of the debts he included were joint, including 12K owed to Discover, 23K to BofA and 25K to citibank. He was listed as primary borrower (he had the income) and I was listed 2nd (stay at home mom). I will be filing myself at some point,(I have to finish school, and get a job with insurance first) the joint creditors haven't wasted any time and are already coming after me.

I noticed when I got brave and logged in to the joint Discover account after receiving an e-mail with an urgent message that not only is my ex's name is no longer listed on the account, but when I checked the old statements going back to 2007, his name isn't on the newly generated PDF statements. I have the original pre-filing statements we received in the mail and his name is clearly on them, but if you try and generate a "new" old pre- BK statement, *poof* he's not listed.

The address Discover has listed is my ex husbands, the statements went to him and he was paying them until 8/08. I guess Discover has been trying to send me mail at my ex husband's address, and he's moved again since then!

However, our mortgage still lists him as co-debtor I have been paying that on time though, but my ex "abandoned" the house in the petition, no intention to reaffirm.

It was just weird. I'm going to have creditors coming after me for 100% of $45K in joint unsecured debt...I knew it would happen, just weird.

[StartingOver08]

You just confirmed what I thought would happen all along with electronic statements - the creditor can go back and change ANYTHING on the statement and you would have no way to refute it without having downloaded a copy of the statement and/or keeping a paper record.

If they can delete your soon to be ex-husbands name for the 2 year history, what would prevent the creditor from adding misc charges or changing the interest retroactively?

Maybe someone on this board has the answer.

[2Bshinyandnew]

You just confirmed what I thought would happen all along with electronic statements - the creditor can go back and change ANYTHING on the statement and you would have no way to refute it without having downloaded a copy of the statement and/or keeping a paper record.

If they can delete your soon to be ex-husbands name for the 2 year history, what would prevent the creditor from adding misc charges or changing the interest retroactively?

Maybe someone on this board has the answer.

My creepy fears exactly! The automatic stay prevents any further collection activity post BK, but why delete the co-debtors entire existence on the online-generated statement pre- BK? And if it is OK to rewrite the history of the account to say whatever they want, what else can they do?

[StartingOver08]

Scary stuff!

It's similar to that thread that was posted a few days ago where one of the notorius BK JDB's file a claim against CH 13's EVEN IF THERE WAS A ZERO BALANCE ON THE ACCOUNT prior to the BK. The JDB's excuse is: They don't have time to check to see if a balance is outstanding before they file a claim as it costs too much money! Apparently the computer does it automatically. How many times have we heard that one? Yet the only time they remove the claim is when challenged. How do they know the amount to file? They just make it up! When caught, they had to remove their claim, but the BK court DID NOT order sanctions against the JDB.

[catleg]

You are right to worry about those statements. I've had some scary experiences with my Citibank online statements having transactions change online even several weeks later. It's vital to keep the paper statements.

[StartingOver08]

My kids (they are 21 and 29 yrs old) think I am a little nuts...because I tell them to not trust the electronic statements and download a copy to a hard drive or keep paper file copies.

My oldest daughter even said - I don't have room to 'carry all that paperwork baggage'! I think it may be a generational thing....for some reason the next generation just trusts the lenders (banks, cc's etc) to do the right thing!

Scares the heck out of me....and I'm fearless!

[ready2puke]

I'm wondering if you can file a claim against them for fraud?

[2Bshinyandnew]

wow. The more I think about it....these statements are admissible evidence in a court of law. What Discover has done is like going back in a medical record and changing/altering the record. That can't be legal. I don't see any disclaimers on the Discover card site that the PDF e-statements aren't exactly the same when you download them today as the day the statement was generated.

[lrprn]

wow. The more I think about it....these statements are admissible evidence in a court of law. What Discover has done is like going back in a medical record and changing/altering the record. That can't be legal.

It isn't legal. But to prove it, you have to have the original paper record *and* the money *and* the time to fight it in court. Don't know about you, but it seems to me that a few people that are bankrupt might have kept the original paper bill and also might have the time, but no individual near or in bankruptcy has deep enough pockets of $$ to drag a cc company like Discover into court for a protracted court battle.

The big cc companies know this well and take advantage. Is that wrong? Of course! But you have to prove they deliberately altered an electronic record after the fact - that's a big jump. They can always say "human error, so sorry" and just correct it for you continuing to screw thousands of others with deliberately altered records who didn't catch it the alteration, who did catch it but don't have the original paper bill, or don't have the time or money to protect their rights in court. Sad....very sad that this has become an acceptable business practice these days.

[2Bshinyandnew]

It isn't legal. But to prove it, you have to have the original paper record *and* the money *and* the time to fight it in court. Don't know about you, but it seems to me that a few people that are bankrupt might have kept the original paper bill and also might have the time, but no individual near or in bankruptcy has deep enough pockets of $$ to drag a cc company like Discover into court for a protracted court battle.

The big cc companies know this well and take advantage. Is that wrong? Of course! But you have to prove they deliberately altered an electronic record after the fact - that's a big jump. They can always say "human error, so sorry" and just correct it for you continuing to screw thousands of others with deliberately altered records who didn't catch it the alteration, who did catch it but don't have the original paper bill, or don't have the time or money to protect their rights in court. Sad....very sad that this has become an acceptable business practice these days.

In any case, I downloaded all the "changed" statements available on the website, March 2007 to Present. I guess I'm one of those weird people that save their CC statements...I have most of the paper statements going back to 1996. I was always afraid to throw them away, and then recently going through a Divorce I had to get my financial affairs organized, so I have the info pretty handy.

Any attorney's out there want to take on Discover? They have some pretty deep pockets

I also downloaded the 5 messages in the inbox that were sent when the account became delinquent, the first 3 addressed solely to my husband until 11/28/08, when suddenly the next two were addressed to me.

[StartingOver08]

Well, you might want to bring that up to your BK attorney or maybe a NACA attorney - it is at least worth looking into - you might even hit a payday and not have to file