Boy the calls have started with a vengance

[chloe0724]

I am amazed at how often and how early and late the creditors are calling me. GE Money is by far the worst offender. Calling home, work, and cell many times a day. Got two calls this moring alone, one at 8:15am and one at 8:47am. Should have known better than to leave the ringer in the bedroom on. So now I'm wide awake and typing on this message board.

Should I just answer the phone and give them my attorney's information?

[Flamingo]

I am amazed at how often and how early and late the creditors are calling me. GE Money is by far the worst offender. Calling home, work, and cell many times a day. Got two calls this moring alone, one at 8:15am and one at 8:47am. Should have known better than to leave the ringer in the bedroom on. So now I'm wide awake and typing on this message board.

Should I just answer the phone and give them my attorney's information?

Yes. Once you retain an attorney and have that information, answer the phone and provide it and tell them to call your attorney for information and details. What helps even more is if you have your filing/case number - if you provide that, the calls basically cease.

What is occuring with you is totally normal. Plus those people are just doing their jobs as nasty as it might be to you and others so if you have information to provide them as to your status, do so.

[justplaintired]

We had all calls directed to our attorney and once we did the calls stopped. We are still not filed, but attorney is paid in full and is now handling all calls. I talked to the paralegal on Thurs of this week and she told me that they had gotten calls and she is telling them she is working on our case and we will be filing C7.

[chloe0724]

Thanks. That's what I'm gonna do. We are filing a 13 in about a month.

[Stilltheone]

We retained our attorney on March 4th and weren't able to tell our creditors until AFTER we filed. My attorney said she didn't want the creditors to try and get a lawsuit together before we filed.

We just learned that if it was a 1800 # or an "unknown" not to answer. Eventually, we unplugged our phones. It's nice to have them back now!

[momof5]

I get on average of 90 per day.(our attorney would not let us redirect calls either) I keep the ringer off and never hear a thing. Before bed my husband and I listen to the few that actually leave messages. We get a good laugh because most will come on after few seconds not knowing its voicemail and repeat a name over and over again sometimes getting louder as though we might hear them Then theres the ones that leave messages but dont know they are leaving a message. We heard some guy tell someone he loved them the other day. Ahhh the things that must be happening behind the scenes of the collection calls. *lol*

It is baffling that these people are not required to speak English fluently. Before we stopped answering the phone we had received a call one day from a woman that could NOT be understood. It was awful. My husband told her to learn English and call back.

By the way at this point the calls start at 8:02 AM and continue until 8:59 pm.

[justplaintired]

We retained our attorney on March 4th and weren't able to tell our creditors until AFTER we filed. My attorney said she didn't want the creditors to try and get a lawsuit together before we filed.

We just learned that if it was a 1800 # or an "unknown" not to answer. Eventually, we unplugged our phones. It's nice to have them back now!

I am a little confused, if you're filing what kind of lawsuit would they possibly be getting together? I am confused about that. All attorney's we talked to, told us we would direct all calls to them if we hired them. If you have no abuse on your cards, which we don't, all small charges, then what in the world could they be working on?

I do understand if you have a case of presumed abuse, this would give them extra time to prepare, but if you're filing with no cause for abuse, then it seems they can try all they want, but a lawsuit would only be a waste of their attorney's time and a waste of their money, since C7 will get them no money anyway.

Now maybe the difference is you retained a lawyer and we paid ours in full. This means our attorney has no doubt they will represent us in our case, we will no be backing out, basically it's a done deal. Right now it's a waiting game on the stimulus check so we can use it and then get it filed.

[justplaintired]

Ok, I do understand an objection. What I don't understand is not telling your creditors you are filing BK if they call and giving them your attorney's name and phone number. If a creditor starts a lawsuit against you between the time that you tell them and the time you file, once you file won't that stop a lawsuit?

Thanks for clarifying the abuse and objection for me. But, why would an attorney not want a client to tell their creditors they are filing? That's the part I just don't understand. What lawsuit? Now I am concerned as we were told by 2 different attorney's to let our creditors know what we are doing. Then I read stilltheone said there attorney told them not to tell them about filing due to a lawsuit. I can't find that on here when I do a search, and maybe I am not typing in the correct search, but I am worried now.

Since telling our creditors about our BK the calls have stopped, are they getting a lawsuit against? Wouldn't a judgement against us be stopped once we do file? I haven't gotten anything in the mail from a creditor threatening a lawsuit and we told them we were filing middle of March and are still waiting because of the stimulus check. Our attorney is simply waiting for us to spend it down, our paper work is done, and ready to file. Should we file now?

What kind of lawsuit are we looking at? Will they garnish our wages that quickly? How long will they wait for this lawsuit? I am very nervous now. We haven't had any kind of judgement, nothing asking us to appear in court, nothing. Why would our attorney have us refer all calls to him if this other attorney says don't have calls sent to them to prevent a lawsuit. I am so totally confused.

[momof5]

Our attorney would not let us send calls to their office either. At first it really freaked me out (previous posts confirm this) but after talking to a couple of creditors last week and telling them that we were filing next week ..blah blah blah.. The response was always them same " Do you have your BK case #?"

I believe that legally they can call you up until the day your filed. So you can redirect calls to the attorney but then they can hound him/her until that day and then still call you if they feel like it.
Nothing was ever said to us about not forwarding calls to prevent lawsuits.

[One Half Full]

I haven't gotten one single call. Not a single one. Go figure.

[Stilltheone]

My lawyer just didn't want a "wage garnishment" or any other type of lawsuits "in the works" before our official filing. She said it was best to not say a word until AFTER we were filed and protected....and we kept quiet. I didn't want to have to pay anymore money to defend us against any lawsuits.

I think my lawyer was just being very careful and didn't want us to "tip off" our creditors until everything was official. I'm assuming she was afraid that Visa would call, I would say "Sorry, we're filing bankruptcy" and, in the meantime, Visa gets a wage garnishment lawsuit together. Then, we have a lawsuit against us, which costs her extra time and us extra $$.

BTW, we paid our attorney in full during our initial consultation visit.

Good luck!

[justplaintired]

I haven't gotten one single call. Not a single one. Go figure.

Wow! Lucky you. Our calls started almost immediately after missing one payment and they came with a vengeance! Day, night, work, home, cell.... It about drove us nuts and was so embarrassing when it popped up on the tv. We have dishnetwork and had our receiver programmed to display incoming calls and DH wouldn't let me shut that off! So if someone stopped by, I was freaking out if the phone rang!

[jgordo52]

I had GE Moneybank call me today 6 times, I have two cards with them, Paypal and Carecredit and they told me that they were going to send me to collections, I'm only one month behind, balances on both combine at 2400. How long does it normally take a company to send to collections, was it a scare tactic? Also, I told them when they threatened that, that I had already talked to a BK attorney. Probably a no-no, they never mentioned whether or not I could have them call them or not.

[Boscoe]

Everyone with collectors calling:

1) The Fair Debt Collections Act allows you to tell the collector in writing to only communicate with you in writing. No calls to work, home, cell, no drive by's (not that anyone does that), etc. Only written communication. So try that.

2) If you are going to file bk and have retained an attorney, then forward all calls to the attorney. Someone said 'let them call him/her 100 times". Don't worry. They MAY call the attorney once, but that will end fast. If you do this, the collectors can NOT call you anymore either.

3) Once you file, that is it. NO MORE CALLS. That would be illegal as it would violate the automatic stay.

Good luck all! If BK ends up as your best option, it is not the end of the world. I did it last year and 2008 is so much better because of this decision...........

[chloe0724]

The calls I am getting are from the original creditors. I don't think they fall under the same guidelines.