Collectors after filing

[justdone]

So I filed yesterday... this morning a local collector called (on a taekwondo membership) I told her I had filed and my case number.... she said "Well how about if we just sue you? Who's your attorney?" I filed pro se so I told her there is no attorney but she could verify by the case number...so then she says"you cant file no bankruptcy without no attorney" ... I once again gave her the case number and told her not to call back and hung up!

What am I "supposed" to say when collectors call?

[DeadManCrawling]

I would warn them if they are difficult or try to hassle you. Like this: I'm under protection of a federal bankruptcy court. If you call again you will be in violation of a federal judge's order and could face penalties and sanctions. Here is my case number:

Then, I would buy a recorder, if you don't already have one. You may need to inform them that you are recording, depending on state law.

If you catch them making these kinds of statements again, on a recording, the judge and trustee may be interested. It would be of benefit to debtors everywhere if more of us did this.

You probably wouldn't get any money-it becomes property of the BK estate. But the trustee and UST will do all the work and it will hit the collectors pretty hard. If they somehow collected more than you owe all creditors, then you would get some money, but this would be a very unusual, and very egregious violation or series of violations.

Good luck. I am going out now to buy a recorder for my own phone.

Cya all later,

-dmc

[rrj]

So I filed yesterday... this morning a local collector called (on a taekwondo membership) I told her I had filed and my case number.... she said "Well how about if we just sue you? Who's your attorney?" I filed pro se so I told her there is no attorney but she could verify by the case number...so then she says"you cant file no bankruptcy without no attorney" ... I once again gave her the case number and told her not to call back and hung up!

What am I "supposed" to say when collectors call?

i had one call me yesterday, they already had my bk attorneys name on file,
I told him the date i filed and gave the case number this time

and his words, well do you have a discharge date ? I gave my attorneys phone number and his last words to me was i will call you every day unitll i get a discharge date, I hung up and called my lawyer
and they faxed him something

I think if you go on pacer you can print out the bk filling thing and send or fax it to them
i wish i had a way to recored my call, becouse i know i would probley rake in some 1000.00 but im just going to let it go

[DebtEnder]

Sanctions filed against a creditor does not go to the BK estate as the issue that caused it by very definition occurs after you filed. If you somehow got so much back due to serious violations and the UST tried to argue totality of the circumstances to dismiss the case I would somehow think a judge would look at it as this would never have occurred without filing BK so dismissing BK due to it seems as it would be counter productive.

[DeadManCrawling]

Good point, DE.

I have seen cases where this went both ways. Not sure if I was looking at CH 13 filings though. Any idea if the money would go to the estate in that situation?

Never gave it much thought,just saw it as an interesting angle.

I have read cases where the trustee has asked debtors at the 341 if they received any disallowed contact from creditors. Then the trustee pursued the case and won money which DID go to the estate. I am not sure if these were 7's or 13's, but that one trustee was pretty active with these filings.

[DebtEnder]

I have no idea how in a 13 fines awarded to you would be handled. In a sense it is income and your suppose to devote all excess income to your plan. Which means as a 13 filer I would have no incentive to go after anyone save getting them off my back.

In a 7 having the TT go after them seems to go against the idea of a snapshot of your case on filing day. The breach of federal law did not occur until AFTER filing. The creditor can't violate auto stay if you have not filed.

However I have heard on this forum many times a TT doing things that to me, and to many others it seems, violate many tenets of BK law, but people are just not willing to fight them over it.

[DeadManCrawling]

So true. I think many people either don't fully understand the laws and don't want to make a difficult situation worse, or are simply too tired and beat up to pursue these things.

I am sort of hoping we get some activity during the stay, since I knwo the law and am ready for a fight, even if it delays discharge.

Lol, I have more energy than ever, now that we have filed. A good thing, I guess.

[Martha31]

So true. I think many people either don't fully understand the laws and don't want to make a difficult situation worse, or are simply too tired and beat up to pursue these things.

I am sort of hoping we get some activity during the stay, since I knwo the law and am ready for a fight, even if it delays discharge.

Lol, I have more energy than ever, now that we have filed. A good thing, I guess.

I like your spirit Deadman.

[DeadManCrawling]

Thanks Martha.

I like my spirit, too.

Especially rum.

Vodka is good, though, too.

Come to think of it, I prefer wine.

But beer is fine.

And any ole' drink is cool.



Good luck to you, Martha, and everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.

[WaitNSee]

My opinion for what it's worth...

...so then she says"you cant file no bankruptcy without no attorney" ...

That about says it all for the collector as well as the agency. Sounds like she "ain't got no education", or is that part of her training? There are a couple of posters on this forum that would get a KICK out of a call from this one.

WaitNSee

[justdone]

Yeah how trashy the collector was made me giggle a little bit!

[HakunaMatata]

That about says it all for the collector as well as the agency. Sounds like she "ain't got no education", or is that part of her training? There are a couple of posters on this forum that would get a KICK out of a call from this one.

WaitNSee

I suspect this is part of the training. From the double negative standpoint ("you cant file no bankruptcy without no attorney"), the message is clear...you CAN file without an attorney.

[DeadManCrawling]

Hakuna,

You are getting paranoid, in a good way. I, too, analyze every move on the part of creditors and collectors. They are using increasingly sophisticated methods, at the top of the collection chain, to track debtors, spending habits and lifestyle habits.

FICO, 2 years ago, purchased the largest predictive analysis company in the USA. The real purchase was the intellectual rights to a piece of neural net software which supposedly can predict your behaviour in 5 years, financially, to an accuracy of 98 percent. Very frightening, if true.

Anyway, good post on the double negative. You never know. George Orwell would not have been surprised. Most of the rest of the world dozes on, blissful and ignorant.

[justdone]

I got a call from Valentine and Kebartas today...at first he tried berating me and telling me how stupid I am for not paying my bills when I told them we had filed, he said good try you can't file when you ve made a payment in the last 60 days and hung up...Do I call them back and give them case number, send a letter, or just ignore it?

[StartingOver08]

Of course you can file when you have made a payment in the last 60 days! You just have to disclose your payments on the petition. I would call him just to be a PITA...but its up to you of course.