Met a person who "escaped bankrupcy", could it be true?

[merime]

Without any cosigns, assets, estates , joint checking accounts , inheritence or business relations or loans , I'm sure they will do fine. These days so many people leave behind debt when they go to the grave.

[lillymarlene]

Without any cosigns, assets, estates , joint checking accounts , inheritence or business relations or loans , I'm sure they will do fine.

I hope so. Years later though, there isn't much they can do about it, my brother still gets calls from my father's creditors.

These days so many people leave behind debt when they go to the grave.

That's for sure.

[daxtell]

i certainly do not judge this 78 year old lady as i have never walked a mile in her shoes. heck i have only read a couple of sentences about her. perhaps she never in her life invested her money and perhaps she does not know how. heck my great great great grandparents during the great depression did the exact same thing... hid their money in their mattresses...
yea it sounds wrong to use food stamps with that kind of cash at home. but had she put that money in a retirement account instead of a mattress it would be exempt if she ever did file bankruptcy.

[merime]

I dont know. She has to live off those savings for the rest of her life. Like most seniors it takes but one heart attack to drain life savings. I did not get the feeling that she had made this her life plan. She did mention that she gets like a $70.00 retirement check. Maybe her husband didn't plan ahead as so many do with retirement plans. Now days many people I know have had to liquidate those funds. Banks certainly don't give interest like they used to. Where I work and how I live ,I could never have a retirement plan. No benefits at my job. At least she has peace of mind knowing she has money for car repairs and life expenses. I remember my bankrupcy lawyer saying that if I filed or not the same things that would be exempt from a judgement, would be very close to those exemptions if I filed. So for me unless circumstances change it does not really matter. LOL victorias secret could always ask for my paties back. No matter how we get this point, the true question is how to keep as much as we can and survive and rebuild.

[discouraged]

The thing with bankruptcy, once you are beyond it your creditor's can no longer take it from you. And your friend may have had happen what happened to me. I was losing an average of 2,000 a quarter from my retirement fund and with no one to really advise me (wish I'd found this forum sooner!), I just finally took it out and lived on it. That was a really stupid idea as it then turned out unemployment treated it as income and I was declared ineligible for quite some time. That was about a year before I even thought of looking into bankruptcy. Sigh...

The point I was trying to make is - yes, there are some in the social services who I think believe it is their life's work to find fraud. Hopefully your friends taking out the money was within the timeframe they would not look into to. There is a certain timeframe but I just can't remember what it was. I worked in the social service area years ago and the rules were very strict. I hope she is making it fine and the problem never comes up. One never knows.

[merime]

Very true, but since she withdrew all of it years before she even skipped a minimum payment. I do remember her saying that she found out she qualified for food stamps after attending a movie night at a senior center. She said they have a woman there who helps seniors. I remember this so well because I couldn't help but think I wish they had that for moms who are on their own. I know how tough they are in SS.

[JackBondLove]

It sounds like she didn't avoid BK, but rather is avoiding her creditors. If her creditors wanted to, they could sue for collection, and she would be put into court and have to explain what happened to her $50K (which if it were to be a while, she could claim that she just spent it.) However, if the suit were to happen earlier, the court would demand that she account for this cash, and to fork it over, or else be in contempt of court and go to JAIL. Perhaps is just waiting to blow through the cash, at which time she will simple file Chapter 7. I was in a similar situation, and basically spent down my cash before filing, but it wasn't that long, so I didn't have to worry about getting sued.

[JackBondLove]

We have tried several times now to get food stamps, but 'the household makes too much money', is the declination reply we get each time.

Yes, the limit for Food Stamps is very low. The only reason I was collecting the benefit was because my income was a goose egg, although I was taking a small amount of distribution from my IRA (house was paid for in full on the eve of BK filing.)

[JackBondLove]

Wow, this lady is leaving a potential DISASTER for her heirs to sort through with creditor claims on her estate. When/if a creditor sued her, it wouldn't be hard to track down a large withdrawal of $50,000 from a bank account and for questions to start being asked. This could end very badly for her.

As long as she hid the cash in the house, and her heirs "found" the cash and lied about finding it (and carefully laundered it, e.g. by spending a little here and there over the years), the creditors would never know. The heirs could say that she had a "gambling problem", but know nothing of what she did.

[merime]

She said she withdrew the cash years before defaulting. I think she is pretty safe.

[merime]

If anyone here remembers the little old lady I met who had escaped the system so to speak.

Pleased to report one very happy update. I came across her again on of all places a holiday cruise! She is living a modest lifestyle on her social security and retirement funds.

On paper she has no assets ,except for her monthly checks. Her funeral arrangements have all been paid for. Upon her death, there will be no estate hassles , as she has none. She has never been sued or even contacted by a creditor. She votes, has a checking account owns a car, lives in senior citizen housing. She volunteers at a soup kitchen and runs errands for disabled residents.

I truly love a happy ending.

[AngelinaCat]

Congratulations to that lady!

[keepsmiling]

Bless her heart.

[kornellred]

Crime does pay, after all!

[ccmisery]

I heard stories of people who were able to do this, I suppose if you go under the radar and live with others and work under the table, the statue of limitations will eventually kick in. Not a better course of action in my opinion.