How late were you before you were served?

[Quagmire]

Hello,

I am pondering if I should file for BK or try to do some sort of debt settlement. However as I ponder, I was wondering about how far behind were you in your debts, before you were served, i.e. 60 days or 90 days or 120 days?

Quagmire

[WhatMoney]

It's been five years now and I have never been served.

All of your questions have been answered before in this forum. Calm down. You are one of millions in your situation.

[Exployer1234]

1 year on a car loan I was finally served.

[Quagmire]

Thanks WhatMoney : - )

Exployer1234, out of curiosity, how was your auto loan creditor contacting you for an entire year before they served you . . . i.e. daily phone calls, snail mail notices??? Also, did you ever acknowledge any of their contacts to you prior to being served (via talking with them on the phone or you actually writing to them)?

Thanks to the both you you. I appreciate your input and help.

Quagmire

[ryan]

7 months...but I wasn't home. That's for a CC.

[jacko]

It depends what your credit report saids. If you settle, you will pay taxes on it.

Hello,

I am pondering if I should file for BK or try to do some sort of debt settlement. However as I ponder, I was wondering about how far behind were you in your debts, before you were served, i.e. 60 days or 90 days or 120 days?

Quagmire

[Quagmire]

Thanks Ryan. I appreciate your help. Mainly, I DO NOT want to file BK. Ideally, I just want to see what type of time I "may" have before things really start to get ugly for me . Yet hopefully I can get a good plan into place with my creditors in time, so that they will not serve me.

Thanks so very much.

Quagmire

[jacko]

You get served, big deal if you are collection proof. Why are you scared?

[Quagmire]

Jacko. Thank you for your input. I just came across some information on how to make one's self judgment/collection proof. I need to read up on that.

Thanks much.

Quagmire

[Exployer1234]

Thanks WhatMoney : - )

Exployer1234, out of curiosity, how was your auto loan creditor contacting you for an entire year before they served you . . . i.e. daily phone calls, snail mail notices??? Also, did you ever acknowledge any of their contacts to you prior to being served (via talking with them on the phone or you actually writing to them)?

Thanks to the both you you. I appreciate your input and help.

Quagmire

The creditor contacted me for about 6 months. I spoke to them the first month the phone calls started, but they were not willing to work with any type of payments. When I lost my job I was not able to pay the car payment anymore. I tried to get them to lower the interest so I could afford the payments. After they repo'ed the car I did not speak to them anymore. That was in Jan of 09'. The phone calls stopped in June or July of 09'. The letters even stopped around then. At the beginning of August I received a letter from an attorney's office stating that they were going to pursue further action on my case. I did not hear anything else from them until I was served my court papers on my civil case in December of 09. On the report it stated they started the lawsuit process in September of 09'.

I went to court in January of this year and then my wages were garnished in April. I went back and forth with the attorney on how much I could afford to pay and after a month or two they just decided to start collecting on the garnishment. I filed for BK 4 days after receiving the garnishment. The garnishment was for 10% of my pay, plus the car loan was collecting 10% interest for each day. The interest on the loan was 130 dollars.

The creditor is now filing a claim against my BK. I am waiting to see if I have to do an adversary proceeding. I have no money to pay them so I am pretty sure if it goes this far that I will still be fine for my Chapter 7.

[Quagmire]

Exployer1234, WOW!!! I thought once they repossessed a vehicle, that was it, and that they would just write it off on your credit report that your vehicle was repossessed. I did not know that you were still on the hook for paying for a vehicle that you no longer have . . . nor did I think the auto loan company would come back months later after the repossession to take you to court to garnish your wages. YIKES!!!

I sure feel sorry for you that all that happened to you. With my bad luck, that is why I live in fear that all of the bad stuff (that usually happens months later to people in my situation) will happen to me within weeks instead of months.

Thank you very much Exployer1234, for sharing your experience with me. I hope that things improve for you very soon.

Quagmire

[Exployer1234]

I am thankful the worst is behind me. I would not worry too much about it. It takes normally awhile before anything will happen. I was trying to hold off on BK in hopes I could find a good paying job, but it did not happen.

On a side note once they repo a car they will sell the vehicle and if there is anything left after the sell then you are responsible for the balance. In my case I bought a 2004 Jag in 2008. I bought the car for 16K and after 11.9% interest on the loan I ended up owing 33K. I think they charged me a luxury tax and a bunch of other things on the loan. I got the loan down to 20K I believe. They sold the car for 7K. So I owed the remaining balance, plus repo fees, lawyer fees, court cost, and some other fees in there. The lender also did a false insurance claim in my name. I had to have an investigation done on that.

I am just glad to have all this behind me. Like I said I would not stress over all this. If you do not have a job or make less then the allowed amount they can not take anything from you. That does not mean the wage garnishment will ever go away. All it means is when you get a good job they can start garnishment up. Also you can go in fromt of a judge to petition a lesser amount to be taken out and the reason why. You will have to fill out forms and pay the court cost and various other fees. Creditors can only garnish uo to 25% of you pay. So that means if you have 6 creditors then 25% will be divided between those creditors. So like I said unless you are making a lot of money I would not stress about it. I look at it this way, as long as I have my family I am fine. Everything else will fall into place eventually.

[Fallonedward]

It depends what your credit report saids. If you settle, you will pay taxes on it.

If you do settle with one CC company and then need to save again before you can settle with another...Do they come after you with blood? are you better off saving until you can settle w/all CC's if this is your intent instead of BK?

Does anyone know what the tax rate is for those that you settle? I got an offer to settle a $6k CC for $4k. So I would pay taxes on the $2k difference Is that correct?

thanks

[lovemybugs10]

I am pretty much in the same situation with you. I think that I'm going to have better luck settling with my cc companies.

Discover filed against me in March, 10 months after I stopped paying.

The house foreclosed 12 months after I stopped paying.

The calls got nasty- My husband and I had no income. No unemployment, no anything- and they were unsatisfied with the fact that we were feeding our children rather than paying them- so I stopped answering the phone.

Then I moved. 4 months after I stopped paying, I moved....and they haven't found me. y.e.t.

I am not collection proof. They will garnish if they file.

[LoadedGuns]

Defaulted in December 2008, 7 unsecured creditors, and 1 secured personal loan.

2 summary judgments from HSBC about $1500 each. 09/09 & 11/09
1 judgment from American General $7K in 06/09, settled $5K in 5/10
1 pending suit with Crap 1.