what to say and what not to say

[suzyqpug]

I have been reading alot of the site about not wanting to give or say anything that the creditors can hold over you. What should you say and what not should you say?
I say call my attorney and i give them his name and phone number. They ak me if this is a bankrupcty case and I say yes and then some say well chapter 7 or 13. Once I said I didn't know and then changed it during the course of the conversations and said chapter 7. Is that ok to say? I don't want to say anything that is going to be used against me.

[Frogge]

suzy, the advice I was given is this: After giving your attorney info and saying your filing BK, that should be the end of the conversation. If more questions are asked, just say "I prefer you contact my attorney for more info". Once you've talked to that creditor, you don't need to answer their calls anymore.

[hnhlvr]

Definetly don't say more than your lawyer info. All those conversations are taped and who knows WHAT can come of that.

[BigJohn]

Better yet, don't answer the phone. When I answer, I tell them "he is ill and ill not be back till after 7:00PM" or "he is sick and will not be in for a week or two". For those who I don't really trust, I just "What?"

I haven't tried this one yet, but I plan on speaking to someone someday in pidgeon English. This normally drives the person on the other end of the conversation nuts.

[liz417]

Better yet, don't answer the phone. When I answer, I tell them "he is ill and ill not be back till after 7:00PM" or "he is sick and will not be in for a week or two". For those who I don't really trust, I just "What?"

I haven't tried this one yet, but I plan on speaking to someone someday in pidgeon English. This normally drives the person on the other end of the conversation nuts.

Hee, hee!

[justplaintired]

We gave our attorneys name, number and what chapter we are filing. All were nice, none harassed us and the calls stopped. They did call our attorney to confirm, that I know for sure, I asked the paralegal. So you're doing fine.

Not answering the phone will only lead to calls at work, possible calls to family and neighbors. That was something I absolutely did not want to happen. I know we avoided calls at home for over a month. Then since we didn't answer the calls, they started calling at work and on cell phones. Now getting collection calls at work is something neither myself or DH can deal with. Calling a neighbor would kill me! We have the neighbor from hell and I do mean the neighbor from hell, I actually got into it with her tonight, long story, but anyway if they called her, I think I might have a break down!

So, the day I got a call on my cell phone while I was at work, I played dumb on the phone, had to answer it people were standing around, I told the collector they had the wrong number and immediately shut the phone off. Same day DH got a call at work. So that night, I started answering the calls. Our attorney was paid in full, so he said tell them to call me and that's exactly what I did. Gave them his name, number and what chapter (7). I called the paralegal and asked if she had gotten any calls, she had. The calls have stopped.

You're doing great, just calmly, and yes I know it's hard to be calm, but you can do it. I found the more of these calls I answered the easier it got. So tell them what's going on and my guess is soon the calls will stop and you can breathe a small sigh of relief.

[AngelinaCat]

In the 16 months between when we retained the attorney and filed, we just gave the attorney contact info, and that was that. Now if you have other issues going, I cannot advise. I am responding to this question only, no other.

[BKParalegal]

I had one client who kept a list of the 800 number customer service numbers of all his credit cards, and when they called he said he was filing BK and his attorney had an 800 number and so he gave them their own number. When he gets out of prison, I am going to tell him how funny that was! ;)

[epiphany]

I would think that if you were doing a 13, you wouldn't want to answer that and refer them to the lawyer.

However, is there really any harm, if you are filing a 7, to tell them that? I started thinking about this after one of them asked me and I referred him to my lawyer. This was a collection agency. He said: "Or we can just get this over with right now and we'll send this back to the original creditor". I still didn't answer him but it got me thinking.

I am assuming that they just want to figure out if the are going to be able to recoup anything or if it is a lost cause.

I started answering that question after I had this train of thought. Why wouldn't I want them to believe it was a lost cause and get off my ass?

ep