I am currently in about 30,000 dollars of unpaid credit card debt. I
have not made any payments to any of my cards in about 3 years, i have
had collections agencies and lawyers offices calling my house and
mailing me letters for years now, and i have never responded to any
kind of notice. At the point where i realized that i could not pay
these debts back, i did see a bankruptcy lawyer, and he strongly
reccommended that i should file, but as his fee plus the court costs
were too much back then, i postponed it, and never did file. I
explained to him at the time that I did own my own home outright, and
he assured me that in the state i live in, no credit card company
could force you to sell your home, in order to pay them back. I forget
if he said they could put a lien on your property or not. In any case,
now it's 2006, and i'm still in the same financial situation i was in
when i stopped paying them. I do not have any savings, nor is there
anything in my home of real value. My car is worth less than 500
dollars. I simply live paycheck to paycheck, and my disposable income
per month is about 20-25 dollars. Im just barely making it. The other
day, i finally got a letter stating that one of my credit cards is
offically suing me, and I was told to show up for a pre-trial
conference in june. In the letter, it says that they are seeking the
balance of the card (approx. 4,500 dollars), plus laywer and court
fees. I intend to show up for the hearing, probably without a lawyer,
since i couldnt possibly afford to have one show up with me. I intend
to tell them that I have no possible way of paying this debt back (im
not denying the debt, im simply stating the facts). I am wondering
what exactly is going to happen at this hearing, considering that im
not really fighting the suit?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 07 May 2006 12:46 PDT

Rich,

That letter about the suit may have a silver lining, since it has
prompted you to take action.

May I suggest contacting these folks:


http://www.cccsintl.org/
Consumer Credit Counseling Service


They have a pretty good reputation (and there ARE a lot of 'consumer
help' scams out there, so proceed with caution).  Click on the "Debt
Counselling" button the left hand side of the page to get started.

You can work with them online or over the phone, and they should be
able to give you an idea of what to expect at your meeting, and of
steps you can take to move forward.

Good luck.  Let us know what happens.


pafalafa-ga

It's not good.

They may be able to get a garnishee order on your earnings.

The other Credit Card companies may also jump on the bandwagon.

I guess it depends where you live ... Which State is it?

You could have avoided being in this situation by not purchasing
anyhting with credit cards you cannot afford to pay back.. :(

I agree, I think they will probably garnish your wages and even put a
lien on your property *unless you sell your home, pay most of your
credit card debt and rent?

im in florida, and i can understand if they want to put a garnishee on
my pay. I wonder, however, how much that garnishee can be, considering
I can show the judge or court that after all my bills, all i have is
about 20 dollars extra income. Even if they wanted to take all of
that, its fine, to pay back 4000 dollars at 20 dollars a month, it
would take forever, but if thats what they think is fair, then can do
that. The problem is that i dont know if they can garnishee my pay
above what my expendable income is, like maybe take half my paycheck.
This would be bad because then I wouldnt be able to pay even my
utilities. Of course, this has just made me realize that i probably
need to do the bankruptcy, and have this all erased so that i can get
a fresh start. I have lived without credit cards for a long while now,
and i am able to manage, but not with a couple extra hundred dollars
in credit card payments per month. I am talking with a lawyer
tomorrow, my first opportunity to do so since i have been served with
the papers, and will know more then, but the way i feel is, if i have
to do a bankruptcy, i wont be any worse off than just having 'no
payments' to my cc companies for years, its got to be as bad a blemish
as bankruptcy, and at least i wont have to worry about all these
companies at once, taking my wages, which i cannot afford to have
happen. Im sure like you said, the other ones will be coming out of
the woodwork shortly.

<<You could have avoided being in this situation by not purchasing
anyhting with credit cards you cannot afford to pay back.. :(>>

I understand this, at the time i had the cards, i did have a good job,
and was able to make the payments with no problem. What caused most of
the debt to accrue was that when i moved to this state, I had a
girlfriend and we were putting in half the bills each, and we both had
difficulty finding work down here. The wages here were about 1/3rd of
what we were making in our previous state, and we kind of lived on the
cards to supplement our income. Needless to say, this spun out of
control, and unfortunately, we broke up about 3 years ago, she moved
out, and to a different state, and as a result, i had to pay all the
debts and utilities on my own, whereas i had help before. At this
point, it was a choice to either eat, have light, and water, or
continue paying back my credit card debt. I chose to eat, and i had no
choice but to stop paying the credit cards and consider bankruptcy. I
certainly didnt look to take advantage of the credit cards and have a
good time at thier expense, nor did i intend to cheat them, its just a
set of circumstances that happened, and this is where it stands today.

I am sorry. Seems like bankruptcy is your best bet with 30k in debt. I
wish you best of luck.

Unless you are working a second (or third) job you are not doing all
you could be doing to get this thing taken care of.  If jobs pay
better somewhere else that's where you should be.