Filing Personal Bankruptcy Help

Recently, I was speaking to someone for their free legal evaluation and they asked me, “If I stop paying my credit cards, what will happen?” As an Orlando bankruptcy lawyer, among the first things I advise my clients when they decide they should file bankruptcy and hire me to represent them, is to stop making credit card payments.

Once you stop making credit card payments, the collection process will start. Collections normally progress as follows:

1. Non-stop, for about 60-90 days, the original creditor will call. They will call you, your family, your job. All in an attempt to get you to make some type of payment over the phone. They will threaten to ruin your life, at least financially, if you do not pay them.

2. After 90 days or so, the account will be sold to a third party debt collector who will repeat the actions listed directly above.

3. After about 180 days since you stopped paying, you may get a call from an attorney trying to collect on the debt who will repeat the actions listed in 1 and 2 above.

4. At this point, the attorney might file a lawsuit, seeking a judgment against you. A judgment would permit the creditor to collect from you through a wage garnishment. Your wages cannot be garnished without a judgment.

Kind of a long process until a judgment is obtained, right? Over 6 months from the time payments stopped being made if I added correctly. So why, as a bankruptcy lawyer, do I advise my clients to stop paying on credit cards when they hire me?

Because the idea is for my client to be filing bankruptcy sometime well before the judgment is entered. Garnishment is taken out of the equation. This way, my client uses the payments they would have made to an abusive debt collector, for a credit card debt, to catch up on a car payment or a house payment they want to keep through filing bankruptcy, or to start building that safety net their Orlando bankruptcy lawyer advocates creating as part of your fresh start strategy when filing bankruptcy.

And what about those abusive debt collectors? Florida has some of the toughest laws in the country against the type of abuse described above creditors engage in on a daily basis when collecting a credit card debt against my clients. There is also a Federal Law that prohibits those abusive acts by third party debt collectors in the collection of a debt. You can sue your creditors to enforce your rights, and you should.

The debt collection process can be an intimidating experience, or an empowering one. If you know how it works and you know your rights, the empty threats the debt collectors hurl at you in a typical phone call from them will seem laughable, and more often than not, actionable.

Get the Free eCourse to find out how an experienced bankruptcy lawyer to assist you in successfully navigating the debt collection process and help you achieve that fresh start you’ve been craving.

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