What happens to "good" CC upon filing?

[anonymuse]

If you have any credit cards in good standing, zero balance, basically not used very recently, what happens to these upon filing and after discharge?

Do all credit card companies basically cancel everyone's card, irregardless of history, if they file for BK?

[bkadv]

Yes, I think mine were all cancelled, as the courts sends the letter of intent to file to all creditors listed on your credit report.

[aa06a47]

If your filing a Chapter 7, and you have a card with a zero balance, you do not have to put that in the BK. Alot of attorneys will put everything on your credit report on the list of creditors.

On the flip side, most credit cards do "soft" pulls on your credit report once a year. They will see the BK, and it might prompt them to cancell you. However, if you truley owe a ZERO balance, there is no law requiring you to include them in BK.

If you Chapter 13, your not allowed to have credit, so it is best to include everything and get everybody notified.

[txfencer]

CC all cancelled

After we filed BK we had several Zero balance cards not listed in the BK because zero balance.After discharged all but 1 were cancelled. Havent tried to charge on the sears yet though.A/E completly wiped me off the map.15 years of perfect credit no late payments untill 12/04 after cancer. Now no sign i was ever on the radar with A/E .

[SinkingFast]

I've got a couple I'm hoping will make it thru BK, but I'm almost certain one won't. We have a LOC with SAM's Club. Don't use it often. Just enough to keep the LOC open in case of emergency. Maybe need tires and can't afford them elsewhere. Whatever.

We have a friend who just bought a new car. New to him anyway. Called up the agent to add it to their insurance. A week later got a letter notifying them, the insurance carrier was cancelling all their auto policies. Too many tickets and a wreck in too short a period of time. Adding the new car caused the insurance company to do a routine credit pull and driver's license check.

Friend shops at SAM's and decides to use his LOC to pay instead of paying cash. Denied. Run it again. Denied. So friend pays for the purchase then stops by Customer Service to see what's up with his LOC. SAM's has cancelled it due to a routine credit pull showing negative events in his credit. Loosing his auto insurance has created a domino effect. First the SAM's LOC, then Discover sends a letter limiting his line of credit to about $200 more than the balance he was carrying. Another CC suspended his charging priviledges. It just keeps getting better and better for this guy.

That's all from auto insurance being cancelled.

[anonymuse]

I'm just hoping something survives so I can rent a car and fly in case of emergency (funeral).

[aa06a47]

I'm just hoping something survives so I can rent a car and fly in case of emergency (funeral).

Unfortunatly, it really depends on the cards. So many of these cards are underwritten by the same company, you may not even know you bk on a card that is owned by a company you didn't bk on. Citi owns alot of the secondary name cards, like Home Depot, Shell, etc. I think GE Cap owns Sam's Club. Most of the prime cc lenders will probably cancel you when they do there first soft credit pull. But if you didn't BK on them, them who knows what they will do.

Make sure you have a debit card that can be used same as a credit card. Gotta start building a nest egg for the emergency situations. Since you haven't filed yet, no nest egg is recommended. Start that on day 2.

I filed Chapter 13, so all my cards are gone, and if they by mistake haven't closed them, then it is a mute point because I can't charge on them. I have destoyed and cut them up already anyways. That was hard to do, believe me.

[anonymuse]

AA, thanks for being the one person who understood what I was getting at when I couldn't explain it well myself. I don't want credit for credit's sake--just for emergencies.

[SinkingFast]

We're not filing against GE on any of the other CC's so I was really hoping my SAM's LOC would survive the BK. You can buy tires there and they do sell appliances. And the LOC isn't huge. Just $1500. But after hearing our friend's story, I'm not holding my breathe on that one.

The funny one is BoA. I have one small BoA CC with a $1500 LOC that has nothing charged against it. Hasn't been used in can't remember when. They just sent me a new card in the mail. BoA is on our hit list, and they sent a new card even tho we've missed months of payments on our other BoA CC acct. So I wonder if that one card will survive or not. Will be interesting to see.

The concern I have is the 341. I remember when I first joined here, someone posted that the Judge asked them if they had destroyed all their CC's at the 341. With or without the LOC, a SAM's card is a SAM's card. But having one small store CC acct and that little BoA card that may not get closed, I really hope we don't get asked that question.

[gacreditguy]

I was not asked anything like that at the 341 meeting. The trustee never even brought it up.

[anonymuse]

How do you rent a car or purchase an airline ticket WITHOUT a cc?

[aa06a47]

How do you rent a car or purchase an airline ticket WITHOUT a cc?

The only way I can figure is using a debit card. Make sure your bank allows purchases with your debit card to be either "charge" or "debit". Most of the banks and CU do this (they make more money when you say run it through as a charge).

When I use my debit card, I can either say credit or debit. An airline ticket is easy, if you have the money in the account, you simply "charge it" on your debit card. The rental car, I do not know. I assume they will do the same thing, except, they do a pre-approval against the card in an amount greater than the expected charges. The final charge is made when you return the vehical.

The problem with most debit cards, is the bank limits the amount each day. My bank limits it to $1000/day for purchases as credit and only $500/day if you use it as an ATM card with pin number.

If your in a pickle with an emergency, such as an emergency flight and emergency rental car all in the same day, it could get ugly.

[SinkingFast]

We've already been thru the car rental thing. We had a death in the family and thought about going to the funeral. But that would have meant we'd have to rent a car. So I called about it. This was Enterprise's policy at least.

You can rent a car with a Debit Card as long as it has the Visa or MC logo on the front. Enterprise will charge your debit card, automatically, for $250 up front. (Qualifying that comment based on the car we were selecting to rent. Midsize if I remember correctly.) The person who's Debit Card gets used is the person who actually rents the car. Say your Mother/Father was gonna pay for the car for you, but you were the one who'd actually rent and drive the car. That won't work with a Debit card. Who ever the Debit card belongs to has to have a valid driver's license and will be the rentor of record. If the rentor wants to allow another person to drive, there's an additional fee.

Our schedule was too hectic at the time of the death in the family to take off a couple of days and go to the funeral. Plus we woulda had to stay in a hotel over night, which was additional expense. So we just decided not to go.

Mom buys airplane tickets all the time and pays in cash. She makes her arrangement either thru a travel agent or direct with the airline. Generally Southwest. If she uses a travel agent and pays by check, they mail her ticket to her after her check clears. If she deals direct with the airline, she shows up early for check-in and pays in cash. The airlines will not take a check if you pay for your ticket immediately prior to boarding.

Either way, you'll have to have a cash reserve set aside to pay in full to rent a car or buy an airplane ticket.

[edwards2]

In our case we had several credit cards with zero balances and they were immediately cancelled when they found out about the BK. One was Exxon and the other one was Casual Corner. Casual Corner has since gone out of business so they are a moot point. I did call Exxon and the same company that handled BKs for Casual Corner handles them for Exxon as well. We were told to list EVERYTHING whether the card had a balance or not. Despite the fact people like Dave Ramsey recommended you carry only debit cards it is extremely difficult to rent a car here w/o one. What if your airline ticket costs more than your bank's debit card policy will allow you to spend? Kind of damned either way. By the way one of the creditors we listed on our Bk was Household which funds Orchard cards and they issued my husband and I both cards...go figure.

[aa06a47]

Money for emergencies is a big issue just after a chapter 7 bankruptcy and the entire time your in a chapter 13 plan. I was probably 25 before I actually had a credit card, and I see how entrenched the credit industry has become a part of our life in just 15 years. Don't you just hate it when your waiting in line at the store and someone pulls out there check book to pay for something.

Even those people who claim to pay there bills off each month would probably be lost without there cards, and probably would have a hard time making it to the end of the next month if all the sudden the cards were gone.