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I'm wondering if it's worth it to call the lawyers up and saying something like, "Sorry dudes, but I'm basically on welfare. You aren't going to get your money within the next several years, so please just make this all go away"? I've got less than $5k in credit card debt across two cards. It appears the original creditors have gotten local debt collection lawyers involved. I'm in very bad financial/medical shape, but working to get myself out eventually. I'm on public assistance and in a community college. It's either that or bankruptcy, and people tell me that declaring bankruptcy over less than $5k is completely stupid, but screw it. I'm not in any position where my credit score will matter much until I'm done with school (at least another 5 years).
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Dec 20, 2009 02:58
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I lost my job and then I ran out of savings. I couldn't pay my credit cards, so I didn't. Now I'm hosed. Capital One charged off the defaulted card I had with them ($1000), and sent some collection people (MRS Associates) after me for a while. Then Capital One NA got a shady firm in my state to sue me (total now $1800). I didn't do anything so they got a default judgment. Where I live, that will be on my report for 10 years and of course that can be renewed until the end of time. A couple months after the judgment, they figured out where my bank account was (how the hell?) and garnished my wages. All of it is exempt, so I went through the procedure to get the money back. I live in fear of them trying to take money out again even if I'll get it back, so I don't keep any in there and only do it for immediate transactions where the money won't be in there for more than a day or so. I have another credit card through a credit union that I defaulted on ($1k). It was charged off, and seems to have ended up at a firm that only does collections. I wasn't sure if it was 3rd party or not, so I did a debt validation letter, and they stopped contacting me after they got the letter. I haven't heard anything since. I have no assets, no property, no non-exempt wages to garnish. I've been holding out here, thinking maybe someday I'll acquire enough money to pay it all off, but that hasn't happened and I don't know if it ever will. I am embarrassed that I should file for bankruptcy because the entire amount of the debt is so small in comparison to what I feel is an acceptable "bankruptcy amount." But I can't pay it, and don't have anyone I could get to pay it for me. samizdat fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Apr 2, 2011 |
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Apr 2, 2011 01:31
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skipdogg posted:A BK attorney is going to cost you at between 800 to 1000 dollars for their services, if your total debt is 2,000 dollars it doesn't make much sense to use your 1 every 7 years magic reset button on 2K. Well, there's no way I'd be able to pay for a bankruptcy attorney. There's legal aid in my city that I would qualify for, but I'm considering doing it pro-se because my city also offers free bankruptcy clinics. I'd never consider pro-se if I had any assets, more than my two creditors, and didn't have access to local bankruptcy resources. While they can't garnish my wages right now, they've tried. The money was taken out of my account and it was on me to fill out a form and attach proof of exemption to get it back. It's nerve-wracking when I have to pay bills because I'm scared they'll snatch the money out before it's sent to a utility company. I feel like a fugitive or a paranoid old person who lived through the Great Depression. Because of the garnishment, I don't know how I could work out of this. As soon as I get money that isn't exempt, they will take it. A couple days ago, I learned that a relative was selling some land and that they'd give me enough money to pay off my creditors when/if it sold. I was going to pursue bankruptcy options within the next month, but I'm holding back for now.
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Apr 11, 2011 07:05
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Offrampmotel posted:This thread has convinced me to never get another credit card. Just stay away from lovely cards and join a credit union.
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Apr 18, 2011 08:04
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TWiNKiE posted:Credit unions can be lovely, too. Yeah, it can be a coin-toss. My anecdotal evidence points to superior treatment by credit union: I've used Wells Fargo and a local credit union, and the credit union has significantly lower or zero fees. (Granted, Wells Fargo is the devil.) AFAIK, my credit union never raised interest on me when I missed payments or defaulted. The only poo poo they hit me with were overdraft fees. I actually feel bad for defaulting on them and having a charge-off, but I'm kind of a chump. EDIT: What's cool is that if they're a member of the Credit Union Service Center Network, then you can use other member credit union locations for "shared branching." This helps with the common problem of your credit union having limited locations/ATMs, especially if you go out of town. samizdat fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Apr 19, 2011 |
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Apr 19, 2011 07:47
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some texas redneck posted:So are they really gonna sue? I got sued over $1000 when I didn't have any job or assets either, it depends how lovely the company is. If you poke around and find out if they have a history of going off after poor and/or disabled people, them the answer is yes they will sue. People make it sound like if you have no assets then they won't sue, but that's not always the case. They'll sue and if you have no assets or wages to garnish, they'll start trying to take any money from your bank account(s) that they can get.
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Jul 21, 2011 07:28
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They claim I owe a little over $1000. I wouldn't think they'd sue over that amount, but nothing would surprise me anymore.
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Look for legal aid for low-income people in your area, if you have no income then they can help you file bankruptcy.
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Jul 25, 2011 22:55
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theDoubleH posted:As the creditor (is that even the correct term here?) did I make a mistake by trying to collect when the defendant had not been properly served? I'm pretty sure he can get the judgement vacated if he hadn't been served?
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Aug 12, 2011 11:33
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This might be a dumb question, but how do you pay a judgement? I've scoured the court website and there's nothing there for debtors who want to pay, only creditors to report payment. It looks like I have to mail them money and then they're supposed to let the court know that I paid it? I'm kind of wary about sending a bunch of money to a shady bunch. EDIT: I don't have any paperwork leftover from when they hounded me for the money, which included invoices etc. samizdat fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Aug 30, 2011 |
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Aug 30, 2011 10:31
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AuntBuck posted:You can fight it but it's going to be tough if you don't have any documentation. How long ago was this judgment? How long since the CA last contacted you? The judgement was April 2009, and they did try to garnish my wages/bank account shortly after but all my money is exempt so they had to give it back. I've got no documentation and can't remember the last time they contacted me, it was probably to garnish my bank account. Halvor posted:There will likely be a phone number on the judgment you receive from the court. Give a call to whoever sued you in the first place (and apparently won). Yeah I feel like I should've done more instead of being paralyzed by anxiety and ignoring taking action, but I was having bad clinical depression and couldn't handle much of anything at the time. BTW this is CapitalOne with a shady law firm, not a CA. Which makes it worse in my mind.
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Sep 5, 2011 09:40
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some texas redneck posted:ChexSystems now removes all information after 5 years, according to the letter I got from them. I'm finally off of their books. USAA? The military credit union? I am in ChexSystems (still to the best of my knowledge, this happened in probably 2008 or 2009), I have something like $120 I owe a credit union in overdrawn checking account fees, but somehow I've gotten an account with Wells Fargo anyway. However, another local credit union has some alliance with the credit union I owe and wouldn't take me unless I repaid the other credit union.
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Aug 7, 2012 07:06
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some texas redneck posted:Federal savings bank, but USAA mostly targets military and family and generally operates at a pretty low profit margin. Their checking/savings products are open to everybody, I think everything else requires some form of military affiliation. Their "free checking" really is free - ATM fee rebates up to something like $10-15/month, free checks for life, no monthly fees. I had no ideas USAA was that available, my boyfriend is active-duty Air Force and uses them for everything so I had figured that I wasn't able to use them. Free checking etc. would be awesome. I had signed up for a "College Checking" type of thing with Wells Fargo so that might be why they even let me in. It seems less restricted than the "second chance" but it sort of sucks because it does require the mandatory savings on each purchase or else I have to pay some poo poo like $12/month. I have it set so it just has to move $1 each time and then each month I move it all back. They recently gave me a credit card so I'm guessing something must've fallen off my credit report because I couldn't get one last year.
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Aug 19, 2012 11:13
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Only reason I wanted to use them is they had a branch on UNT's campus.. Even Chase wouldn't send my account into a negative balance if there wasn't enough to cover a monthly fee; WF sent both accounts into the negative for the monthly fee then had the balls to charge me daily fees on top of that once it'd been a few days.