Same Ol Story But Have Question

[knight3989]

I have been reading on the forum for a couple of months now and there seems to be alot of nice people on here. I just joined, and have a question First of all ours is the same ol story, great jobs, in a little too deep and my wife just lost her job stoped paying unsecured creditors about 2-3 months ago and are now in the process of interviewing attorneys. Of course the calls are non-stop. Today my wife called me in tears, it seems Discover has call her 75 year old mother, and her brother, and both sisters all on the same day looking for her. I called Discover and told them our problem, and not to call anyone but us. They said they would, but I'm not sure they will. They have been calling me at work several times a day (along with everyone else). Is there anyway to stop the OC from calling family members and work? Everything so far is with the OC. Like I said, interviewing attorneys now, looks like about 2-3 months before we file. Really don't want to, but now it looks like our only option.

Thanks for reading!

[albacore44]

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear Discover did that. I have only spoken to a couple of my creditors. Discover never called at all. You are limited to what you can do with the original creditor, but if you speak to them and tell them to only call at your home phone, they should honer it. you have more leverage once they go to collection agencies, since you can send them a DV or C & D letter

[StartingOver08]

OP, where are you? Some states have consumer credit/debt collection laws that are as much or more restrictive to the creditors including OC's like Discover. California and Wisconsin debt collection laws are very pro debtor.

Look up your states debt collection statutes to see what is available to you. Sounds like Discover has gone overboard in "trying to locate you". Normally they are only allowed to contact others to locate you and it is limited to one time. If you retain an attorney for your BK, usually you can have the creditor call the attorney's office (if it is included in your fee) and leave you and your family alone.

[LimpDisc]

If you find your attorney and pay his retainer the calls can start going to him. Once we did that almost all the calls stopped.

Discover will call non stop until they get the attorney information. We were so lucky to have 2 Discover Cards. Double the fun.

[calgirl67]

We had one scumbag collection agency call my husband's dispatch number - he works in emergency services. They asked for him to be paged. This was AFTER we had told them the previous day we could only be contacted at our home phone number.

Can you believe that???

We retained an attorney the very next day and will be filing in early January. We are also filing suit against that collection agency for violation of the FDCPA laws.

My advice is go ahead and retain an attorney ASAP. Doesn't really matter when you file. Then take pleasure as I did in calling the creditors and saying "Please be informed I have now retained an attorney and have commenced Chapter 7 Bankruptcy proceedings. All communications must now be made through my attorney. His name is ... and his number is .... I am also putting this in writing to your company. Good bye"

[lindsay2181]

We retained an attorney the very next day and will be filing in early January. We are also filing suit against that collection agency for violation of the FDCPA laws.

Let me know how that goes please!

I have read several threads in which people mentioned suing creditors for violation of the FDCPA. Exactly what do you get out of this? (Monetary awards to cover all/part of your debt with them LOL?) And if these creditors keep calling my parents after being told I don't live there, and they are aware of my correct contact information, can I threaten to sue them for being in violation? Will that make them shake in their boots?

[DeadManCrawling]

You can always sue for violations.

They will probably not shake in their boots.

Any money you win will, most likely, go to pay off creditors. Silly, isn't it?

A few very serious cases resulted in the debtor having enough money to retire. Over 90k in one case. This was a SEVERE violation of the FDCPA, though. It involved fraud ont he creditors part, forgery of signatures, wrong dates and so on.

[lindsay2181]

Well I wouldn't mind if we could call it even lol!

[lookieloo]

Let me know how that goes please!

I have read several threads in which people mentioned suing creditors for violation of the FDCPA. Exactly what do you get out of this? (Monetary awards to cover all/part of your debt with them LOL?) And if these creditors keep calling my parents after being told I don't live there, and they are aware of my correct contact information, can I threaten to sue them for being in violation? Will that make them shake in their boots?

You can sue for up to $1000 and usually without having to prove anything. In extreme violations you come away with a decent sum of $$$

[StartingOver08]

But the big benefit of suing for FDCPA violations, besides the monetary award, is you end up on a list of debtors that are known to sue CA's and the CA's will not mess with you after that! There are even companies that sell the list to CA's so the CA knows who to leave alone....

[DeadManCrawling]

Very good point, startingover, I had forgotten about this list. Can't recall what company is doing this, but many believe that if you are on the list of "difficult" debtors, you will be less likely to receive calls or be sued.

I will be interested to see what time reveals.

[knight3989]

Ok Sorry but now I have another question, just received a call from encore colloctions for GE Money bank. Said they were collecting for Sam's club. I never received a notice that the debt was sold or turned over to collections. This is the first call I have received from anyone regarding the GE money account (Sam's) Should I have received a letter first? Can I DV them after this call?

Sorry for the questions, the forum is helping me from going crazy

Thanks.

[StartingOver08]

The CA has to notify you within 5 days of first contact or it is a violation of the FDCPA. Wait for 7 to 10 days (for mailing) and then not only DV but put in the letter that they failed to notify you in writing within 5 days of contact.

[albacore44]

I had several with Encore. you will get a letter. Send them a DV and they will promptly go away, but next stop will be a Law firm

[knight3989]

I plan on filing sometime in March or April, interviewing another attorney next week, hope I can hold off a law suit until then.