Keep Copies of your CR's

[treehugger1]

The truth is many folks are bankrupt and it can take a long time before they are prepared to file; months or many years.

I was speakng with a friend of mine who advised me to keep copies of credit reports; especially a clear accounting of when the account was in default. In addition the major unsecured creditors report the chargeoff date within a month or so.

Why is this important? Well, it could be that it might be years until you declare a BK. So many years, such that the SOL will be close to expiring before any legal action is attempted against you. Keep a clear record of reporting times by the CRA's. You might need this "evidence" sometime in the future.

[StartingOver08]

Also it is a good idea to keep records even after filing BK. The JDB's buy the debt in bulk - and some of the debt is debt that has been discharged in bankruptcy. Yet the JDB's continue to collect on old debt or discharged debt! This is commonly referred to as 'zombie debt'. See this article below (part of which is copied here, but there are more details in the link):

In recent years, a cottage market has developed for discharged bankruptcy debt like that of the Greens. Collection companies buy the debt for as little as 3 cents on the dollar, then try different tactics to collect.
"It ought to be illegal to sell bankruptcy debt," said Henry Sommer, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.


Zombie debt
The U.S. Bankruptcy Code prohibits the collection of discharged debt — often referred to as zombie debt — but that doesn't stop collectors from trying to get the debtors to pay voluntarily.

Charles Delbaum, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said it's illegal for collectors to threaten debtors with legal action over discharged debt, and it's illegal to report it to a credit bureau if they know it's been discharged.

"The general problem is the debt buyer either doesn't care or makes no effort to find out if the debt was discharged," he said.
"They either seek to collect it or keep reporting it on a credit report hoping that will force the individual to pay the debt."

Credit bureaus, of course, have no responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of credit reports, which is why so many contain errors.

It's also why there's a market for discharged debt. Without using credit reports to coerce debtors into paying, collectors would have little recourse.

Discharged bankruptcy debt, though, remains a small piece of the far bigger market for zombie debt. Richard Tomlinson, a Houston attorney specializing in consumer debt issues, said he's seeing a surge in cases locally involving everything from defaulted credit card bills to auto loans.

"It's become a huge part of the legal marketplace," he said.

Perhaps the weakening economy is causing more companies to attempt to collect defaulted debt, or perhaps the collection industry is getting more efficient. Either way, Tomlinson said he sees collectors "trying to collect on people they used to give up on."


Taking it to court
The Greens' case, though, predates the recent rise of such cases, and the length of time during which creditors have pursued them is unusual.

Tired of battling the zombie debt for more than a decade, the Greens went on the offensive. In February, they sued all three mortgage companies that had attempted to collect the debt, accusing them of, among other things, deceptive trade practices and violating federal bankruptcy and debt collection laws.

In court documents, the companies denied the Greens' claim and questioned whether the Texas City property was discharged in the bankruptcy.

The case is set for trial in Galveston next year.

"I decided I'm not going to take this lying down," Green said. "It's not just me. It's happening all over America."

As more Americans struggle with mounting debt, they're finding that, like bad pennies, sometimes the debt never goes away.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at [email protected]. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/5799694.html#

[Rick9972]

Oh, you guys are so correct. I keep stressing to people to do two things; one keep a file on each creditor starting with your last statement before you defaulted and keep every statement and collection letter in that file from that point on. I have around 20 manila file folders one for each creditor that contains all the above.

I will not be guessing or wondering how much I owe to who or who has what account. Every time an account is moved to another CA or JDB a note is made on the outside of the file folder and all statements and letter to and from are saved in the folder.

Second, pull a CR of yourself before or right when you stop making payments. I subscribe to a service through Costco that lets me monitor who looks at my credit. I get an email every time an inquiry is made or something is changed.

Also, I print a hard copy of my CR every 6 months and keep those in a separate file folder.

I realize to some people all this seems anal or not necessary, but a TH and SO have said, you need records to prove thing like SOL dates and amounts owed and it may be years in the future when you need those. Lets face the reality of how JDB and others work. They claim you owe them, we all know it is supposed to be they have to prove you owe them, but as you have read and it is becoming more prevalent, it really is the other way around. Unfortunately it has become of a case of YOU having to prove you DO NOT owe it to get them to stop. It only takes a JDB with a bogus statement to get a default judgment or a JDB with a bogus claim and now your proving you don't owe it, how do you do that? Well I can tell you that complete records would trump any claim in a court room.

Not anal enough IMO!!!! I print a copy every month of all three of my CR's. I also Keep a seperate report showing all activity on all tree reports, by when it was reported.

It is really interesting to compare reports with about 4 months between them sometimes. Things that should not change do sometimes.

[BigJohn]

I check my credit report almost every day. If there is a change, I file away a copy. With the number of people filing bankruptcy leaves a fertile playing field for Zombie debt buyers and Junk Debt Buyers.
When a person files bankruptcy, some of the debts might be sold and the ones buying the debt will not notify you of the debt till the debt is discharged. Because you are unaware that they bought the debt, you might wonder where that debt came from when they come a collecting.

[kvangild]

I check my credit report almost every day. If there is a change, I file away a copy. With the number of people filing bankruptcy leaves a fertile playing field for Zombie debt buyers and Junk Debt Buyers.
When a person files bankruptcy, some of the debts might be sold and the ones buying the debt will not notify you of the debt till the debt is discharged. Because you are unaware that they bought the debt, you might wonder where that debt came from when they come a collecting.

BigJohn, May I ask what service you use to check your credit report daily? That sounds expensive where as some other services just let you pull your report once a month (TU for example). Or are you just using a service to let you know of any changes?

[BigJohn]

I sign on at www.experian.com. It cost me $19.95 a month.

I signed up for this service thru www.creditexpert.com.

I hope this helps.

[BigJohn]

I can pull my experian credit report as many times as I want per month for just %19.95. I consider this one of the best deals I found on the internet.

[kvangild]

I sign on at www.experian.com. It cost me $19.95 a month.

I signed up for this service thru www.creditexpert.com.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the heads up on that BigJohn. I wasn't aware of a service you could pull it daily at a feasible rate.

[BigJohn]

I hope the rate is the same I get it for - $19.95.

[kvangild]

I hope the rate is the same I get it for - $19.95.

I'm not sure if this is "all" that your getting but its saying $11.95 per month.

"When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Experian Credit Manager. If you don't cancel your membership within the 30 day trial period, you will be billed $11.95 for each month that you continue your membership."

http://www.creditexpert.com/Default.aspx?SiteVersionID=2&SiteID=100003&sc=699999&bcd=&areaid=26&pkgid=dkl2v

[Rick9972]

I have Truecredit and it is not daily for all three now just monthly. It costs 14.95 per month.

[BigJohn]

I'm not sure if this is "all" that your getting but its saying $11.95 per month.

"When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Experian Credit Manager. If you don't cancel your membership within the 30 day trial period, you will be billed $11.95 for each month that you continue your membership."

http://www.creditexpert.com/Default....26&pkgid=dkl2v

That is it, and it isn't $19.95 but $11.95. I log into experian and it is an experian report, not a third party report.

There is a free report you can get that is fairly accurate. It is not from one of the big 3. Recently, one of our members did post the link. Maybe somebody can dig it up.

[ecsclb1724]

www.creditchecktotal.com allows daily pulls