Buying time and stalling creditors

[womanonfire 2]

Hi everyone! First time poster here! 

I stopped paying some of my cards due to a job loss and big decline in income and the last payments were around Oct. 2019. I own a home with equity so I'm not judgement proof. Is there a general time frame on when I can expect to be sued?  Here is who I owe: 

BOA - $9000

Webbank - $9000

Cap One - Walmart $5000 

Citi Business Card - $1200

Comenity Bank - $1200

I'm more than likely going to be filing bankruptcy but I'm stalling it to save some cash. Looking for personal experiences. 

Thanks. 

 

 

 

Edited January 12 by womanonfire
New title with info

[Harry Seaward 1,356]

The SOL on credit card debt is 6 years in Gerogia, so they can legally wait until the last day of the 5th year to sue you.  Most of the creditors you have listed occasionally sell their debts to debt buyers.  Of course there's no guarantee they will sell it, but if they do, dealing with a lawsuit from a debt buyer usually becomes a much more manageable task than doing battle against an original creditor when arbitration is an option.  The one of your debts that arbitration probably won't work with is Citi, so be prepared to deal with that one head on at some point.   The BoA and Webbank debts are fairly significant, so those could be more challenging, even with arbitration.

For now, I would start by contacting each of your creditors and ask about trying to settle.  If you are actively pursuing them, even if you're only offering 10% of the debt amount, they will usually hold off on selling the debt or suing you right away.  They also won't take 10% right out of the gate, either.  They'll counter with 75-80% and then you spend a couple weeks 'contemplating' their offer, and make another counter of 12.5%.  And back and forth.  That should buy you 6 months or a year to save up enough to file BK.

Whatever you do, don't threaten bankruptcy.  Every person they talk to does it and they know if you're serious, you would just file and be done with it.

[womanonfire 2]

10 hours ago, Harry Seaward said:

For now, I would start by contacting each of your creditors and ask about trying to settle.  If you are actively pursuing them, even if you're only offering 10% of the debt amount, they will usually hold off on selling the debt or suing you right away.  They also won't take 10% right out of the gate, either.  They'll counter with 75-80% and then you spend a couple weeks 'contemplating' their offer, and make another counter of 12.5%.  And back and forth.  That should buy you 6 months or a year to save up enough to file BK.

That's really good advice if I only had the money! I set up a payment plan with the rest of my creditors but BOA would not set one up with me. I'm actually meeting with a bankruptcy attorney today so we will see what she says. Thanks!

 

 

[Harry Seaward 1,356]

3 hours ago, womanonfire said:

That's really good advice if I only had the money!

You missed the whole point of my advice to negotiate with them. 

[womanonfire 2]

On 3/5/2020 at 10:58 AM, Harry Seaward said:

You missed the whole point of my advice to negotiate with them. 

Sorry about that. I was mentally distracted but I'm thinking this over now because it makes very good sense! 

[womanonfire 2]

On 3/4/2020 at 8:32 PM, Harry Seaward said:

For now, I would start by contacting each of your creditors and ask about trying to settle.  If you are actively pursuing them, even if you're only offering 10% of the debt amount, they will usually hold off on selling the debt or suing you right away.  They also won't take 10% right out of the gate, either.  They'll counter with 75-80% and then you spend a couple weeks 'contemplating' their offer, and make another counter of 12.5%.  And back and forth.  That should buy you 6 months or a year to save up enough to file BK.

Whatever you do, don't threaten bankruptcy.  Every person they talk to does it and they know if you're serious, you would just file and be done with it.

I have an appt. with a BK attorney Wednesday, who I know will probably urge me towards it, but I like your strategy a lot! 

I'm thinking that I should not call, but write for a written record. I'm fine with email to. Most of my debt is still with the OC so do most people recommend to start out their correspondence with a dispute as is typical with a CA and response to a dunning letter? 

Every single one of my accounts has been charged off except for one open credit card account with a low balance (under $500) I'm attempting to pay off so I have one recent card outside of bk if that is the direction I end up going. 

On a side note, I got a settlement offer from one of my creditors in the form of a rather charming card. How clever of them! They got the exact reaction from me that they wanted to get, which is work with them.  

Outside of all this, I was thinking that if I could start saving money to pay these creditors, perhaps I might be able to get around all of this and not file bankruptcy after all? Now that be nice, a fresh start without being in a 36 to 60 month bankruptcy plan!