CPO!! Questions....lawsuit

[whatamess]

I have had three contacts from a collection / junk debt buyer since filing, one of them since closing. My attorney has sent me paperwork that we will appear in court in March 08 unless they respond to his paperowrk within 30 days. Is this the standard deal you went through? Did you go to court? I think you settled out of court right?
Thanks..hope you are still poking around here once in awhile!!
WAM

[magyar123]

Are they trying to collect on debts included/discharged in your bankruptcy? That's a BIG no no. Send them a copy of your dischargepaper, and tell them to shove their collection efforts up where the sun don't shine.

[whatamess]

They tried many times. i forwarded the info to attorney, attorney tells them to stop, they send ANOTHEr letter. Needless to say attorney is very peeved. Thats why we are taking them to court unless they respond to this letter within 30 days from my attorney. Im just wondering *if* the respond what happens. if we go to court what happenes. Attorney is closed all weekend.
Nuts I say!
WAM

[allavdj]

I would be willing to bet that if they are given a summons to appear in court for blatant violations of the FDCPA, they will probably try to settle with you out of court. They can be hit with a possible fine of up to $1000 for each violation PLUS court costs and attorney fees.

[HHM]

Is this your BK attorney, or another attorney helping you.

If we are talking about going to court so quickly, my guess is, your attoreny is moving for a Automatic Stay violation in BK court and not an FDCPA action.

[allavdj]

According to his sig, he's already been discharged and is done with the whole process, that's why I assumed a FDCPA violation.

[keepmine]

According to his sig, he's already been discharged and is done with the whole process, that's why I assumed a FDCPA violation.

Once a bk is discharged, the automatic stay morphs into a permanent injunction prohibiting any collection activity forever. You are far better off reopening the bk and pursuing damages in front of a bk judge because, damages are not capped like they are for an FDCPA violation.

[allavdj]

Once a bk is discharged, the automatic stay morphs into a permanent injunction prohibiting any collection activity forever. You are far better off reopening the bk and pursuing damages in front of a bk judge because, damages are not capped like they are for an FDCPA violation.

O I C, I did not know, if that's the case, definitely take it back to the BK court, the judge will know what's what and your collectors lawyers might not be completely BK Court savy.

[CPO]

I have had three contacts from a collection / junk debt buyer since filing, one of them since closing. My attorney has sent me paperwork that we will appear in court in March 08 unless they respond to his paperowrk within 30 days. Is this the standard deal you went through? Did you go to court? I think you settled out of court right?
Thanks..hope you are still poking around here once in awhile!!
WAM

HHM and keepmine are right....

First, is this "activity" for a secured debt in which the lien survived your BK and they want the property back?

Most legit post BK "collection" activity is of this type.

It's perfectly legal to ask for the return of post BK secured property. The lien survives.....

It's illegal to ding your credit reports post BK by any discharged creditor, or continued collection of unsecured discharged debts.

So, assuming this is collection of discharged unsecured debt then:

The best place for this is in the BK court you filed in.

Any collection activity post-discharge unsecured debt is a violation of the permanent injunction of your discharge and they can be slapped with contempt charges in bankruptcy court, your court, in which your judge will be very displeased with collectors ignoring his injunction.

You will have to have enough evidence to prove willful intent to collect on a known discharged debt, otherwise they will try to worm out of it by calling it a 'bona fide error,' as in they were not notified or some crap like that.

There is no limit to the levies that the judge may charge or the restitution he may order on your behalf...

FDCPA violations are limited to $1K per offense, and they are usually settled out of court for maybe a couple of grand or so and your FDCPA attorney gets a big chunk.

They don't admit fault either.

So, take your poison. I'd contact a FDCPA attorney too and see what they think.

https://www.naca.com

The key point either way is can you prove they know of the BK and that this UNSECURED debt has been discharged.

Good luck with it.

CPO

[CPO]

P.S.

In my cases, I had on hand recordings and written letters from collectors, pre-discharge, violating the FDCPA multiple times on multiple days.

My evidence was irrefutable, as collectors are moron stupid idiots that have no fear of the debtors they abuse.

My FDCPA attorney was part of my BK package, as he works for the law firm that filed my BK.

My FDCPA attorney simply contacted NCO, Mann Bracken and Bass and Associates attorneys and informed them of our evidence and our intent to file suit in federal court.

Fax'd them a brief....

I assume that each collector representative did an "investigation" of some sort, triangulated phone calls/letters/whatever and realized they had been "had" by their own employers...

The "employers" paid up within two weeks of my signing each settlement.

We never got to court.

Of course, when your that stupid, who wants to prove it to a judge?

Right now, since I'm post BK discharge, I'm setting up Bass and Associates again because although they have contacted me about "returning" about 800 bucks worth of electronic crap to them (representing GE MoneyBank), they ran my credit two weeks after they received my discharge documents......

So I'm researching whether I should run them through the debt "validation" trap and hope they fail that multiple question test or just nail them with "permissable purpose."

I'd like to stack the deck on them if possible.

I'll keep you' all informed.

CPO

By the way, I'm earning a living again....

So, I'm not ignoring anybody, I just don't have computer access like I used to and my visits are brief....

[whatamess]

I have three letters and one phone recording. the other phone calls my mother took and never wrote down the time or info, nor recorded like I told her to. I had told her NOT to answer. Living with an elderly person can be a pain!!
Two letters and a phone call were placed before discharge. One collection letter was after discharge and closing, about three days. The debt collection is for a hospital bill so there is no secured property to go after. It was discharged with no objections.
My BK attorney is taking care of this. He is a very well known and respected attorney. He has lots of experience dealing with creditors. This will be in the same court my BK was filed in. My court date in in March 08 but the attorney is hoping to settle out of court it seems. Something else for my stomach to turn about.
Thanks all!!
I will keep this updated.
WAM