Re: Going Under but not Forever! - Posted by Jim IL
Posted by Jim IL on November 30, 1999 at 21:39:14:
Darla,
AVOID the BK at all cost!..if you can.
I went thru it, and in the beginning loved the idea of not having to pay all these bills that we included. (WOW! Look all this “EXTRA” money we have now?!?!)
But, here I am almost three yesrs after discharge, and am still haunted by that BK.
I did all the “Credit report repairing” that you will/have heard about.
My report is better now than it was right after and during the BK, BUT, we still can not get good loans like we want to. (prior to the BK we had a fico that was REALLY HIGH, so a few minor glitches would have not hurt AS bad as the BK!!..the things we do in our youth!)
If I had it to do all over, we would have negotiated with the creditors and gotten the debts either restructured or paid off at discounts.
(of course threatening them with the “possible BK”.)
I have bought SEVERAL properties since, but could have done a LOT more with good credit.
In fact, last week, thanks to my pending divorce, I had to open a new checking acct for myself.
My bank offers a thing called, “check guard” which is just a small ($1000) over draft protection.
I had it on my old accts, all of them. (5) and always paid it off quickly whenever we used it. (not often.)
But, on this new acct, the bank refused me saying that I’d had a BK on my report.
The SAD part was that I was not even asking for this credit, and was opening the acct with a $10k beginning balance.
They still said, “NO!”
And, the really fun part is that the $5k in “check gaurd credit” I have on the “other accts” I cannot use, because it belongs to me and the soon to be ex-wife.(already have alerted the bank to NOT let her use it either.)
The bank would not even allow her and I to each take our names off some accts and let the other party keep some of them. You know, split them up, you keep these two dear, I’ll keep the other 2 and we can close this last one.
(And all the “check guards” have a ZERO balance.)
I did however get a good credit line from a home supply warehouse store recently. I applied and they gave it to me, no questions asked. (I almost fell off my shopping cart when they said that!)
So, AVOID that BK, there are better ways to go about it.
And as someone already said, a few “late pays” are WAY better than that BK all over the reports.
PLUS, in MANY cases, the accts you include in the BK will NOT get reported properly.
I am still trying to fight with EXPERIAN over a credit card that was included in my BK and they have on my report as being UNPAID and LATE by 3 YEARS!!
We have even sent them certified letters from the creditor showing that the acct. is closed, and was included in the BK. We may have to resort to using my attny for this fiasco, sonce they are disregarding the Fair Credit Reporting act…(30 days to investigate and ratify or remove from my report.)
And trust me, these credit reporting agencies are REALLY big beauracracy’s (sp?) and a night mare to deal with.
Unless you like unanswered letters and voice mail tag.
Good luck to you,
Jim IL
P.S. Also, make sure you look long and hard at the behavior or circumstances that got you here, and FIX IT!!
In my case, it was my first ex-wife, and she is gone.
Now if I can only get rid of this latest one??!?!!
Õ¿Õ
