Debt Collectors

[OK_Cat]

Wackycat's rich gf might loan you some cash

I'd suggest you do it, but most Oklahomans are poors too.

No student loans here, friend. 

If you don't have any loans because your parents paid for it hen you really got knocked down a ring with me because of this thread.

If you tell me you were all schollie then I say you're lying. 

Clean it up Okcat.   I like you man.

schollies/working my ass off.  but this isn't about me, carry on with the poor fella.

[star seed 7]

i'm pretty sure okcat just went to one of those summer photography night classes to get a certificate or something.  you don't really need a degree to take wedding pictures

[meow meow]

what's a social league?

Kickball, softball, beer pong, etc. Leagues where coworkers from local businesses, friends, family, etc. come out and play, drink, and socialize. It's fun. They also help with pub crawls, royals/chiefs tailgates and more. Why?

He was making fun of you for just being you.  Probably peer pressured into by ERII and OKcat and maybe rusty.  What a stupid follower dick meow meow is.  Just another gE robot out to melt unique snowflakes with their own original thoughts and feelings.

that was pretty mean

Maybe stop picking on fanning like everybody else and let him live his life.  Also stop trolling Hubs by telling him to work at a grocery store stocking shelves.  JFC if that's your answer then you don't have one.

You're awful.  And mean.

[j rake]

Well like I said before she does pick up a lot of freelance gigs. I'd say that she spends the vast majority of her time working. Often times her job will necessitate a time commitment from her 7 days a week bc they publish content 7 days a week. When she's not doing that she's working on her freelance side projects. It's probably fair to say that if she took a low paying job like stocking shelves in the evening she would probably bring in a little more income than her freelance work but I could see it really jeopardizing her current full time position since she really needs to be "on call" most of the time.

is she a print journalist at a newspaper? if she's good, i'm sure her skills will translate to other fields. to my surprise, i was basically offered a marketing job at an established sportsbook here in vegas not too long ago...on the basis that i am (was) good at twitter. i don't have any marketing background, i'm totally awkward when it comes to selling stuff, and i'm generally not much of a promoter (the website i used to operate was famously non-profity). and yet, someone thought i'd be great for that job and considered me a potential target.

it is true that a journalism degree is (mostly) worthless. but the skills you acquire (that sadly could have been acquired by merely taking a couple of classes) are extremely useful to many fields outside of journalism, and if your soon-to-be wife took a day or two to figure out what those things might be, i'm sure she could elbow her way into a better situation (my definition for "better" in this case is $ based).

if your wife is a decent journalist, then she is likely intuitive, eager to learn, hard working, and good around people. this would qualify her for any number of sales jobs, including those that are commission-based, in addition to customer service jobs with more room for advancement than anything she could be offered in the journalism world.

securing a better-paying FT job and supplementing it with freelance writing work (less strenuous, she chooses her projects) could give her the best of both worlds: she could earn more $ (helps pay debt!) while also allowing her to still be a journalist, which is presumably what she wants to be.

i'm sure i could help identify freelance gigs if it was ever of interest.

[CNS]

Watch a Youtube video and just fix it?

This can almost universally be applied to any problem short of surgery if you are not a stupid person.

[BIG APPLE CAT]

Hub,
I honestly don't mean to pile on, but why do you own a house if you can't come up with 5k in 3 weeks? What will you do when the a/c goes out.

DC it's BECAUSE the AC could go out that I don't have 5k to spend in the next 3 weeks.  I guess I should have prefaced that earlier statement by saying "I can't come up with 5k in 3 weeks without completely abandoning my safety net".  I COULD have 5k in 3 weeks without having to liquidate any assets or take out a loan, but that would leave us with pretty much $0 and if there is one thing I've learned its that something manages to come up pretty much every week.  Its not always major big ticket items, but it's always some 1-off thing that requires immediate attention and man am i glad I have a little safety net for just such emergencies. 

Which kind of takes me back to the whole unfamiliar territory thing.  Having never had dealt with debt collection agencies, I'm not sure on a scale of 1-10 the urgency or immediacy of adhering to their demands.  If its a 10 and crap is going to seriously hit the fan if their demands are not met, then yes i'd say this is exactly the type of situation having that safety net was intended, pay the 5k, and hope nothing bad happens in the time it takes to build that safety net back up.  But what if its more like a 2?  What if they know that their threats are mostly empty, because even if they get a judgement against you there is no way they are going to get that money from you in the desired amount or desired interval of time they want.  What if they know that even if you don't pay, nothing about your situation is really going to change, and they are just hoping they will scare you into doing something desperate?  If this is just a scare tactic on their part, I'd rather explore other possibilities that don't involve me having $0 to my name until my next paycheck.

As far as what CNS is saying - hey man, I get the whole #1belt thing, I really do.  I'm not a fan of accepting it as an inevitable reality, but its sounds like that's probably just the way its going to be.  That being said, should things become litigious, I have no desire to offer up my wages or assets and in effect give them a bigger bucket when they come to the well each month.

[Rage Against the McKee]

How did you and your wife manage to build a $5000 safety net while also falling $5000 behind on your payments? Do you both just keep your finances/bills concealed from each other? If you care at all about credit scores, etc. then I think this is probably an emergency that warrants using the $5000. If you are simply looking for the absolute best settlement to get out from under this debt ASAP and don't mind the prospect of not being able to get a loan in the near future, you may be able to hold out for a better settlement. I would talk to a lawyer. I don't think bankruptcy would help you here, but a lawyer would at least be able to tell you some of the tools the debt collectors have and don't have at their disposal.

[star seed 7]

debt collectors will almost always take less money, if it's paid "right now".  bargain with them a little

[star seed 7]

and by that i mean "hey, we can't swing 5k right now.  we can do 2500 today, and we start back on a payment plan of $xxx a month"

[slobber]

debt collectors will almost always take less money, if it's paid "right now".  bargain with them a little

What I said.
Get it in writing before you send them anything if you are settling the debt.

[hemmy]

Wackycat's rich gf might loan you some cash

I'd suggest you do it, but most Oklahomans are poors too.

No student loans here, friend. 

If you don't have any loans because your parents paid for it hen you really got knocked down a ring with me because of this thread.

If you tell me you were all schollie then I say you're lying. 

Clean it up Okcat.   I like you man. 

Nothing wrong with your parents paying for it

[Daddy Claxton]

I'd use the 5k to alleviate the debt situation at least to the point collection agencies aren't calling you. Maybe a credit counsellor would be helpful in getting the best resolution for you.

Then I would sell the house and a car. Tough it out for 2 years and then look back with your wife on a time when you had to work together to solve a big problem. I've been through something sort of like this and it was actually very good for my marriage (once it was over).

[Gooch]

FYI Debt collectors pretty much laugh directly in the faces of credit counselors.

[Rage Against the McKee]

Doesn't Trim go after people who don't pay their hospital debt? His input in this thread might be somewhat valuable.

[BIG APPLE CAT]

How did you and your wife manage to build a $5000 safety net while also falling $5000 behind on your payments? Do you both just keep your finances/bills concealed from each other? If you care at all about credit scores, etc. then I think this is probably an emergency that warrants using the $5000. If you are simply looking for the absolute best settlement to get out from under this debt ASAP and don't mind the prospect of not being able to get a loan in the near future, you may be able to hold out for a better settlement. I would talk to a lawyer. I don't think bankruptcy would help you here, but a lawyer would at least be able to tell you some of the tools the debt collectors have and don't have at their disposal.

I guess because we have kept our finances separate to this point. WE didn't fall $5k behind on payments, she did.  WE didn't build a $5k safety net, I did.  I know I probably sound like an bad person there but I'm just making the distinction.  As before mentioned, up until this point it hadn't really been a problem.  At least, not to my knowledge or to hers either.  She was making her loan payments on time and in full, contributing to our joint expenses, and things were progressing right along.  She did not realize she had been provided inaccurate information about her debt consolidation.  She thought all of her loans were in there, but they weren't.  So while she thought she was making all her payments, in reality there was a very big private loan that was becoming delinquent. 

I am willing to accept that we as a couple took a foolish approach to our finances, and that had we not treated them separately then this sort of thing probably wouldn't have happened.  I know that her attitude towards the situation is that she is ashamed of her massive amount of student loan debt, and that she wants to take responsibility for it and manage it without forcing me to have to take care of it as well.  And I admire her for that.  A lot of people have warned about how I could end up resenting her, and really I think the way I would have resented her most was if she just assumed that once we were together I was going to take care of her money problems for her.  I appreciate that she wants to take responsibility, although it would appear that now she is very much in over her head.

As far as the impact on our credit...well not a lot has changed since we've been together.  Her credit was awful when we met and has continued to be so.  My credit was good and by virtue of the fact that I continue to pay my credit card bill in full every month, as well as my car payment, as well as the mortgage and all other bills in my name, my credit remains in good standing.  I've heard that being associated with someone with bad credit can hurt your credit score...don't know if that's true but if so then yes, her bad credit is hurting my good credit.  Thing is, even under the best case scenario (like we win the lottery tomorrow) and she pays off every penny of her debt in full and puts herself on the fast track to fixing her credit, it's still like a minimum of 7 years before her credit score is anything other than a burden to us.  Anything we do that requires credit, will be completely dependent upon me for the next few years.  It's a reality I have made peace with.

[KSUBrian]

 Unless your name is on accounts with derogatory info reported, her "problems"  won't affect your credit rating. Where it might hurt is if you need to apply for joint credit because you need both incomes to qualify. Her low score/rating will probably result in a denial.  Btw, I recently saw a file on a person that just over 2 years after a bankruptcy had a credit score of over 700. While some lenders may turn her down due to the bankruptcy,  which stays on her record for 10 years, if she had the income level, job history, and down payment, a lot of lenders would make her a loan at this time.

[KSUBrian]

stjdent

responsibiljties.

Celebrate responsjbly, Brian. Drive sober or get pjlled over.

So sorry Mr. perfect that I've got big fingers and don't always go back and proof read what I've typed on a message board.

I'm just having fun with my IRL friend ksubrian. Buds.

Sorry SB I was in a bit of a sour mood last night and the combination of poking fun at my spelling and drinking at the same time kind of struck me wrong. While I can drive and drink, i guess i shouldn't be typing and drinking. Those two just don't mix.

[Trim]

Doesn't Trim go after people who don't pay their hospital debt? His input in this thread might be somewhat valuable.

Good grief.

[IPA4Me]

People make mistakes in life. This gE brother sought advice from a group he trusts. Props for asking. Plenty of solid advice here. Hopefully you and your wife can recover and have a great debt free life together.

[Trim]

My understanding is that her loan originated with AES, who sold it to another lender NCT, who sold it to another lender NCO, who in turn sold it to debt collector NES.

I don't think you have the last part right.

Getting a true debt collector to stop bugging you is easy.  The problem then is that if you're not willing to make acceptable voluntary arrangements, or even talk to them, the collector's client will have to decide how they want to proceed.  That pretty much just consists of suing your wife or not.  Your wife just needs to make herself an unattractive defendant.

If they sue you, the suit can and the judgment likely will act as a lien on real estate.  They can't take your homestead, but it'll cause a slight pain in the ass when you try to sell.

I'm speculating that NCO is now the true owner of the debt and would be the plaintiff.  As of right now, they wouldn't be able to garnish her wages as they purchased the debt.  That's an odd KS statute for which there's pending legislation to repeal.

If you think your wife makes for a good defendant in the eyes of the plaintiff, you should be trying to deal with the true owner of the debt and the people who'd be deciding to sue you and actually suing you.

And I suspect what truly led to all this is that she defaulted on the terms of that loan (as opposed to not being current on payments with a collection agency or whatever) causing an acceleration clause to come into play and the entire balance actually being due now.  So nobody's under any obligation to work with her or take the money over time or anything.  It just comes down to whether working with her is more efficient than suing her and taking her money as the law allows.

[SkinnyBenny]

Doesn't Trim go after people who don't pay their hospital debt? His input in this thread might be somewhat valuable.

Not that kind of lawyer.

Or might be. No idea.

[meow meow]

Call 800-400-8549 just heard on the radio, Freedom Debt something or another.  May just be for credit card debt not sure

[Trim]

Demonstrating to a creditor that you have money and are easy to get it from by way of getting suckered into a debt relief scam is a fantastic way to get sued quicker.

[meow meow]

Hub, don't call the number I just posted, likely a waste of time and terrible idea.  Thanks!

[Boom Roasted]

So what should he do Trim?