What's your advice on this?

[DYLAN150]

This is be my first month of not paying my credit cards bills. Do I disconnect my land line phone to my home and go with cell phone only? Do I leave the land line hook up and take messages on it?( right to voicemail) I understand that if you talk with your creditors once a week then they won't call your neighbors. (don't like my neighbors anyway)

[LadyInTheRed]

Probably just speaking to them once will keep most from calling your neighbors. They just want to know they are reaching you. I added caller id to my landline when I stopped making payments and let the creditor calls go to the machine. I returned each creditor's call once and told them I couldn't pay, didn't know when I'd be able to pay, but was working on my financial situation and would know more in about 30 days. That slowed some calls down, but not others. Eventually, I didn't need to look at caller ID to know a creditor was calling. They tend to call at the same times each day. A "Kentucky Caller" liked to call at 8:00 a.m. every Saturday. I finally started to turn off the ringer on Friday nights. The 8:00 a.m. weeday calls helped get my up when I had hit snooze too many times!

[lorelei]

I quickly learned to only turn the ringer off and only answer the phone when caller ID didn't show a number I knew. If they called my neighbors, none of them ever told me about it. Probably most of them don't know my name anyhow. Hope the neighbors gave them hell if they tried that. No one in my family was contacted.

Maybe I did wrong by just not answering, I don't know. But I figured what was the point? I couldn't give them what they wanted and I'd just as soon not be insulted about it or made to feel bad about my situation. Trust me, I had that one covered on my own.

[helpme2010]

I quickly learned to only turn the ringer off and only answer the phone when caller ID didn't show a number I knew. If they called my neighbors, none of them ever told me about it. Probably most of them don't know my name anyhow. Hope the neighbors gave them hell if they tried that. No one in my family was contacted.

Maybe I did wrong by just not answering, I don't know. But I figured what was the point? I couldn't give them what they wanted and I'd just as soon not be insulted about it or made to feel bad about my situation. Trust me, I had that one covered on my own.

1. You can mail your creditors a cease and desist, demanding that they no longer call you, but mail you instead. This takes about 10 days, but will stop them from calling you. I did this with 2 credit card companies and it works. They may begin calling you later, but it won't be for months.

2. I disconnected my landline well before bk, since it was just a waste of money. I programmed my cell phone with a special and funny sounding ringer for each of my creditors numbers. It would do a quick beep or ring tone and then go silent after that. They will sometimes call you from different numbers, so you can add those when they do.

3. Ignore the calls, but you can call them say every couple weeks and say you are trying to work on your situation and that usually shuts them up from calling you for about a week.

I never had them contact a neighbor or family member. That would surely suck. good luck.

[shark66]

My advice would be somewhat different: put your phone on "do not disturb" and ignore all of them altogether.

You can't send a cease and desist letter to the original creditor, to the best of my knowledge, only to collection agencies. You may want to verify this one, since I'm not 100% certain.

The persistent ones will call your family and neighbors whether you pick up the phone or not, they just want to embarrass you and pressure you into paying.

You've got absolutely nothing to gain - in my opinion and experience - by speaking to any of them, especially if you're close to filing.

My $0.02 only...

Good luck.

[Jacey]

I say fuggem. I set up Google Voice, put it on ignore and never talked to anyone. I saw hundreds of missed calls/week whenever I looked at it, and it made me kind of sick. I agree with lorelei...I knew what they wanted and knew it couldn't happen. Conversation not required.

[tls]

Well, I didn't see any point to answer the calls either--couldn't do anything for them. Guess who they called--my friend's EX-WIFE!! No idea how they worked that, but at least they didn't say who they were--just that they were trying to contact me. Doesn't take much to put 2 and 2 together. talk about stress! glad it's almost over.

[papie]

Probably just speaking to them once will keep most from calling your neighbors. They just want to know they are reaching you. I added caller id to my landline when I stopped making payments and let the creditor calls go to the machine. I returned each creditor's call once and told them I couldn't pay, didn't know when I'd be able to pay, but was working on my financial situation and would know more in about 30 days. That slowed some calls down, but not others. Eventually, I didn't need to look at caller ID to know a creditor was calling. They tend to call at the same times each day. A "Kentucky Caller" liked to call at 8:00 a.m. every Saturday. I finally started to turn off the ringer on Friday nights. The 8:00 a.m. weeday calls helped get my up when I had hit snooze too many times!

I used to work in Kentucky for a collections agency and always got cussed out for calling people at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and having a number that didn't show up on their caller ID.

I'm sorry, LadyInTheRed! LOL

[LadyInTheRed]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]
You can't send a cease and desist letter to the original creditor, to the best of my knowledge, only to collection agencies. You may want to verify this one, since I'm not 100% certain.

It's true that under the Federal law you can't send a C&D letter to the original creditor. But, some state laws extend to the original creditor. In California you can send a C&D letter to the original creditor as they are included under the definition of a debt collector.

I used to work in Kentucky for a collections agency and always got cussed out for calling people at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and having a number that didn't show up on their caller ID.

I'm sorry, LadyInTheRed! LOL

LOL. I forgive you. You gotta make a living!