anyone have trouble with family in all this?

[SuzieBK]

Ugh

Well, I guess the "good" thing is that my in-laws know about the bk and so does my mom. But if they call my husband's siblings, he will freak. Mine, whatever, I really don't care.

How long does it usually take before they start calling your families? We had been current until this month, but the calls to our house started within 2-3 days of the first missing payment.

I'm meeting with our potential attorney a week from Thursday, hopefully at that point I can start answering the phone and at least telling them we're working with an attorney.

[woeisme]

Creditors will not start calling and harassing your family IF THEY KNOW HOW TO CONTACT YOU DIRECTLY. Let me repeat this, the creditor wants to talk to YOU, not your Mom, not your in-laws, etc. They want to know how to get in contact with you. 99% of these problems can be totally avoided by the debtor taking action first, you call your creditors, tell them what is going on, tell them your attorney's contact info, if you are at that stage, tell them numbers, addresses where they can reach you. Send them cease and desist letters if they try to contact you at other places, like work or relatives. Seriously, they aren't trying to embarrass you into paying by calling your grandma, that would so rarely work! They are trying to figure out how to get in contact with you personally. People are so scared of talking to someone making minimum wage for a debt collector that they make more problems for themselves by trying to avoid them, just answer, give them an address where they can reach you, get THEIR info so you can send a cease and desist, requiring that they only contact you via USPS.

[frustrated7]

My creditors all know my current information. They had received cease and desist letters from me and from my attorney multiple times, yet they continued calling. (These were also collection agencies, not original creditors.) They called my parents even though they had my current information, had talked to me multiple times, had received cease and desist letters from me, had received cease and desist letters from my attorney (who is now my former attorney, since he couldn't do his job and wouldn't even protect us from clearly illegal activity), and knew I was represented by an attorney. They STILL continued to call my parents, as well as calling me. When they call me parents, they don't ask how to contact me, because they already know. I really think the only reason they are calling my parents is to try to humiliate me into paying. It only stops when my parents threaten to file harassment charges against them. Maybe some people are lucky enough to have creditors follow the law, but I am certainly not among them. The creditors would even refuse to tell my parents their name, who they worked for, or their phone number and would hang up when my parents said I had an attorney so that way they could pretend they still didn't know. One of them even started screaming at my mom that he didn't give a damn if I had an attorney or not he was going to talk to me and only me and he didn't care how many people he had to call or how many times he had to call. I'll be glad when I can actually file and the automatic stay starts.

[SuzieBK]

What kind of person would go into that business? I know that a job's a job, but how much angry and pent-up frustration must you have in your life to scream at perfect strangers like that? And over money. It's not like you killed someone and they're trying to find you to put you away. It's money--money that doesn't even belong to the person doing the screaming. What a screwed up system.

[BornAgain]

woeisme and Frustrated7 sure have different experiences.

The noteworthy thing I take away from reading their two posts is that Frustrated7 speaks to his experience with the phone calls and clearly states he's referring to the people that called him in his case. Frustrated7 writes that his creditors were awful.

woeisme on the other hand writes generally, and phrases his post to include all creditors. woeisme writes that all creditors want only to make contact and aren't interested in pursuing unnecessary calls to third-parties.

The difference, while subtle, is important on a forum like this, where so many come looking for advice. Anyone can post anything here. "You should... That income is always treated as... They'll never... Creditors only want..."

It's clearly caveat emptor here on the BK forum, as far as taking advice goes. I feel sorry for the folks who trust advice and not verify. But I really scorn people who post advice and information phrased with certainty, and answer questions sounding absolutely sure when they shouldn't because they don't really have an authorative answer.

Fortunately, with just a litle lurking it's pretty easy to tell who's standing on a foundation of knowledge and who's pulling an answer or opinion out of a hat. Hint: It doesn't have to do with post count.

Creditors will not start calling and harassing your family IF THEY KNOW HOW TO CONTACT YOU DIRECTLY. Let me repeat this, the creditor wants to talk to YOU, not your Mom, not your in-laws, etc. They want to know how to get in contact with you. 99% of these problems can be totally avoided by the debtor taking action first, you call your creditors, tell them what is going on, tell them your attorney's contact info, if you are at that stage, tell them numbers, addresses where they can reach you. Send them cease and desist letters if they try to contact you at other places, like work or relatives. Seriously, they aren't trying to embarrass you into paying by calling your grandma, that would so rarely work! They are trying to figure out how to get in contact with you personally. People are so scared of talking to someone making minimum wage for a debt collector that they make more problems for themselves by trying to avoid them, just answer, give them an address where they can reach you, get THEIR info so you can send a cease and desist, requiring that they only contact you via USPS.