Stopped Paying

[unsecured]

Well I stopped paying some of the credit cards and 2 unsecured loans in January, the phone calls have started, they even call on an unused cell phone??? I just couln't see buying gas and food on CC's so now I pay for those and forget the bills...I think if they wish to negotiate they should do it by mail, or am I just "wishful thinking"?

[EveryDayAdam]

those phone calls are likely just phone calls from the original creditor with a courtesy call to see what's up and see if you forgot to make a payment. Most people they call just simply forgot to make a payment and aren't planning on not paying. You can typically stop the calls from the original creditor by answering the phone, when they ask for you, simply state that they have the wrong number...they'll apologize and hang up...They may call back once or twice more, but just be consistent. This is what I did with Amex and Chase...it stopped the calls from them pretty much instantly.

After 3-6 months you'll get calls from outside agencies...you can use the same story, but they won't believe you and keep calling.

If they are calling on your cell phone, some cell phones allow you to program a number in and give it a custom ringer...see if you can't give the number's they call from a silent ringer...then you don't notice them unless you're looking at your phone or a couple hours later when you do look at your phone.

I setup PBX phone systems for a living, and I run a little asterisk VOIP phone system for my home phone (it's like a corporate version of Vonage). Eventually, I just started recording the numbers they called me from, and setting up my asterisk system to play a disconnect notice to anyone calling from those numbers...so, to the collection agencies, they got a notice that sounded like my number was disconnected, but everyone else got right through. :-D Occasionally the debt would change hands, and i'd have to block another number, but it kept the phones silent enough.

[debtmonster]

Pbx

I am now falling in the same trap. Last year me and my wife made an income of excess of $100k. At the end of the year I lost my job. In January my wife lost hers. Neither one of us can get new jobs.

Anyway, we have a new phone # from Grand Central. It does the same kind of thing. If I get any collection agencies calling, I simply log into the web page and "block" their number. When they call back, they get the message that my phone # is disconnected. I can also route the incoming calls to any phone # I want based on the caller ID! It's really a sweet service. Plus when the calls come in, it announces the name of the caller. You can press "1" to answer, "2" to send to voice mail or "3" to send to voice mail and listen in. You can press "*" to intercept.

You can also choose to route all calls to voice mail based on the Caller ID. It's truly a sweet service.

I had a friend who became a pest, so I blocked his # and now he thinks I disconnected my phone when I really didn't.

I am now contacting all of my credits one by one and having them change my phone # in their system to my new Grand Central #.

Last year we racked up about $100k in debt between stuff we bought and new cars. We just had one of our cars repo'd 2 days ago. We had 3 new 2007 cars. Now that we have a big chunk of our income gone, we can't afford to pay on any of them. We can't even make the minimum payments on stuff. It truly sucks. My wife had absolutely perfect credit and now this year it will all be totally destroyed. She's so depressed.

[danaf]

does grand central work with any cell phone carrier? or is it it's own cell phone carrier? and how much extra does it cost?

[debtmonster]

does grand central work with any cell phone carrier? or is it it's own cell phone carrier? and how much extra does it cost?

YES! It works on ANY PHONE! When somebody calls me, it rings my home phone, cell phone and MagicJack phone all at the same time. Which ever phone I answer on and press "1", it routes the call to and hangs up on the other two phones.

You can also route the calls to certain phones based on the caller ID.

Let's say your wife's friend calls but you don't want to talk to her, so you route the call to ring your wife's cell phone.

Then your beer buddy Jake calls and your wife has no desire to talk to him. When he calls the same number, it knows to ring only your phone based on the caller ID.

It also has all kinds of cool answering tones and everything.

It's FREE! Grandcentral [dot] com.

It can do voice mail so if you eventually get your home phone # disconnected, it will continue to take calls and keep all of the voice mails so you can listen to them over the web. Then you can click each person in the call log and assign a name to them and later click "BLOCK" or "SPAM" if you get tired of the person calling. It's truly the coolest service I've ever used. Google bought them out.

I think they are in beta mode. I was given an invite. I would watch them closely until they go open or I think you can join a waiting list to get in. I used all of my invites up.