What to say when the calls start coming . . .

[OhioFiler]

Fear is your enemy. Remember who is actually on the other end of the call. It's merely an agent for the bank who is doing his/her job. They aren't Mafia henchmen and they aren't judges. They're just people trying to get by like all of us. They don't really care if you make a payment or not.

Answer the phone and validate your phone number and address for them. Tell them you are unable to make a payment and ask them to check back next month. You are not required by any law to share any information with them over the phone. Do not feel obligated to answer any questions. Be kind and ask them how their weekend went. You can control the call rather than the collector.

Most will put you on a 4 day call cycle but if you don't answer their calls the phone will ring non-stop.

[momisery]

We paid our 300.00 down to an attorney, but we have not filed yet. We have not gotten all the treatments done for hubby and we need to include those .. not sure if there will be more creditors or not by the time the medical issues are addressed. So it could be a couple months before we pay to start the paperwork process. Should I still refer them now, or later to my attorney...

[Workinitout]

Forgot to note when I called the ATT they were great and didn't charge us for the change due to "harassment calls" that we hadn't eve received. We also got on the lifeline program to reduce the phone bill. So heck, we eliminated the calls AND reduced our phone bill. DO IT!

No calls at work...cuz I aint working....and my wife is a sub teacher..no way to call her.

[lala]

We are between 30 and 60 days late on 5 cards (2 banks) and they call every third day or so. We usually pick up if we are here. I just say that I can't pay. They ask why (i'm not sure why they ask the same question
every single time.). Each time I tell them the same thing, which is that we've had a decrease in income. I tell them we do not know when things will improve and that we have no extra money for payments and cannot commit to anything. It takes 1 to 2 minutes. So far they have been pleasant.

They have asked me the verify address and phone number. They have asked for a work number and I just told them that I preferred they called us at our home number.

It's a bit of a pain, but so far not too bad.

[Mary123]

More great advice. Thanks!

I think I'm going to answer for the first 2 months or so and see how that goes,
and then probably turn on the answering machine after that.

[Pizza]

Say NOTHING. Don't answer the calls. They know all the excuses, offers, and pushoffs that you could think of. Plus, you will be recorded and the wrong words could be used against you if they object to your BK. They will send you letters, respond using the appropriate form letters, do what you can to stall them with the letters (without false promises or lies), and other than that don't tell them ANYTHING.

[whipster1]

Have to agree with Mr Pizza, do not answer or say anything to them. On your voicemail message just say your first name so they know it is the correct number. Turn off the ringer.

They are PROS at getting you to crack and say things/promise payments. Not worth the stress. Look forward to your stress-free life ahead, and don't worry about those maggots trying to suck the rest of your money from you.

[notforsale]

I can't change my number b/c I have all my clients calling on this number, so I decided to tell them when I answered that I just got this # and don't know the person they are looking for and please stop calling. Worked great! They then called my office and I told them the person they are looking for just cleaned out his desk.

[bxphae]

Thankfully I'm bi-lingual, and my other language isn't a common one lol. Seems to work well so far with Wells Fargo.

[justplaintired]

Well maybe we are a little different because we were able to use our tax check to pay our attorney in full before we ever missed a payment on cc. Our attorney told us to send all phone calls his way which we did. For over a year every single collector who called got our attorney's name and phone number, I also told them we were filing BK and C7. I do mean to tell you it was alot of calls too and since we drug it out so long, the calls would stop for awhile and then start again.

I couldn't hide from the calls, we tried that and it about drove me nuts. I couldn't change my number, our family and all our friends already had this number and we have had the same number for over 17 yrs. Besides no collector was going to make me change my phone number.

Another thing maybe we are the odd ones here, but no one threatened us, they all were nice, accepted that we couldn't pay and we were even wished good luck. I even have a few who advised we were doing the right thing! Some said we would make it thru this fine and be much better off! LOL It got to be not so bad answering the phone. They counseled me sometimes and made me feel like I really wasn't doing a horrible thing.

I am unsure what is different between us and others, we had perfect credit and all our debt other then our house is cc debt. I think maybe having an attorney handling the calls helped a bunch, but answering the phone, not hiding from them, heck I even called them if I saw a 800 number on my caller id when I got home from work, so maybe that was it. Either way, be assured they will call and they will call alot, if you don't answer the phone, they will keep right on calling.

[eddiep]

I was very worried about what to say too, but the truth is it doesn't matter what you say. You can tell them to pound sand, hang up on them, not answer, tell them the truth, it really does not matter. They are going to continue to hound you until they send it to a collection agency who will then hound you until you file. Your right to file for bk protection will in no way be affected by what you say to them, and there is no way to get them to stop calling. They are not going to go into court and say this debt can not be discharged because she was nasty to our collection department I eventually took the phone off the hook and once I retained an attorny I called them and gave them his name and phone number. The calls pretty much stopped after that.

[MSbklawyer]

I always advise my clients who are a few months away from filing to disconnect their phone and go to Wal Mart and get a minutes phone and give the number to their kin / friends with strict instructions not to give the number out.

[music12]

I always advise my clients who are a few months away from filing to disconnect their phone and go to Wal Mart and get a minutes phone and give the number to their kin / friends with strict instructions not to give the number out.

why?

[Naomi]

I haven't missed any payments yet, but that will probably change after this month...
For 3 of my credit cards, I'm not really that worried about the calls. The cards are in my name only and I'm not working so...
That's what I'm going to tell them. I don't have a job and can't pay you.

The one stressing me out is USAA because we have a credit card with $16,000 balance and have just about everything else with them. The house, car, insurance...I don't want to talk to them.

I don't know how I'm going to respond to the calls. USAA, I'll probably call and talk to them. The rest, probably ignore. They can threaten to sue me or whatever they feel like. We should be filing in about 6 months.

[48adam22]

Wow, the phone calls I wanted to kick some butt. After a while it was getting kinda funny and I started asking them questions like,,, do you like men ??? ,,,,, do you like men that shave their head bald ?? If I came over to your house would you make me dinner ?? I also would answer the phone, and just start in by pretending to be ordering a pizza. The ones that would call me on a Sunday at 7 am, I would call the # right back, and chew them out for waking me up before hanging up on them loudly.

I filed Chpt 7 two days ago,,,,, strange, no calls today. I'm bored Maybe i'll start calling them and bug them