If so, you may have received, or may start receiving solicitations from credit card companies for their ‘corporate card’.

Wonder why you got so lucky to get credit offers for your business now?

The new tough credit card regulations only regulates CONSUMER credit cards, NOT Corporate credit cards.  That new protection against increasing interest in previous balances doesn’t apply to Corporate cards.  That new restriction limiting late-payment fees to $25 or less – doesn’t apply to Corporate cards.  That new restriction from being able to charge you an over-limit fee if your late-payment fee put you over the limit – doesn’t apply to Corporate cards.

Were you excited when you thought someone recognized that your business was worth credit?  The reality more than likely is that the bank wanted to bypass your personal protections against their fees/fines/interest rates and ding you through your business.

Now do you feel lucky?

The answer?  That $200.00 is for a paralegal (a non-attorney bankruptcy preparer) to prepare your petition and you get to file your case yourself and handle everything from then on by yourself.  There is a reason the paralegal only charges you $200 – they cannot provide you with full & comprehensive legal representation by an attorney from the beginning to the end of your bankruptcy case.

You should ask yourself these questions:

1.  What happens if a creditor objects to your bankruptcy discharge? Do you know what to do to oppose the creditor?  The $200.00 paralegal cannot represent you in bankruptcy court against the creditor.

2.  What happens if the paralegal/preparer really messes up?  How much time do you think they actually spend reviewing your documents and preparing your case?  Do they have their livelihood on the line when they file your case?  If a licensed attorney really messes up, that attorney must fix the problem or risk losing their license.  The judge usually requires the attorney to fix the problem without charging you to fix it, as opposed to a non-attorney paralegal who is not required to do so without charging you extra.

3.  What if bankruptcy is not right for you?  A non-attorney paralegal, who you come to asking to prepare your bankruptcy petition will do exactly what you tell them to do.  There have been many times when a potential client has come to me to file bankruptcy but filing bankruptcy at that time would have hurt them more than helped them.  Their ‘friend’ (codeword for person working at a law firm that does not do bankruptcy) told them that if they filed Bankruptcy that their bank would not cut-off their line of credit that they were using to buy products they were selling in their sole proprietorship business, and which was their only way of earning income.  WRONG.  We are able to restructure how you operate your business and finances to either avoid bankruptcy or plan for a possible bankruptcy filing in the future if the need occurs.

4.  What happens if you keep getting creditor collection calls?  Do you know how to ask the bankruptcy court to issue monetary sanctions against a creditor and possibly put money in your pocket for those calls?  The non-attorney paralegal cannot represent you in court to punish harassing creditors, but the Bankruptcy Defender can.

These are just some of the many questions that a non-attorney paralegal/bankruptcy preparer is not going to be able to help you with, and if they try they can hurt your financial situation even more.

Here at the Bankruptcy Defender, we provide FREE consultations to first determine if bankruptcy is right for you, or if we may be able to help you in other ways.  If bankruptcy is a good option for you, we tell you up-front what your total cost for legal fees and filing fees will be.  We provide you full & comprehensive legal representation from the beginning to the end of your case to ensure that not only can you obtain a fresh start, but that you will be better prepared to avoid the same problems in the future.

Please call William Devine II, your Bankruptcy Defender, at (702) 425-5100 for your FREE consultation and get your Fresh Start today.

If you have a lot of debts, you might consider filing bankruptcy with the Bankruptcy Defender.  Another option may be to stop paying your debts, put money aside in a savings account, and after 6-12 months, begin settling your debts with the original creditor or debt buyer (also known as ‘debt settlement’.)  Regardless, if you are behind on paying your debts you will inevitably be contacted by collection agencies demanding you pay your debts.  Contrary to what some debt collectors believe, you have rights.

Your rights include:

1. Your right not to be contacted at your workplace if your employer does not permit such contact, or if it may cause problems for you at your job.
2. Your right not to be contacted at an inconvenient time, which limits collection calls to only between 8am and 9pm weekdays and weekends in the time-zone of your billing address.  If a third-party collection agency contacts you outside of these hours, it is a violation of the FDCPA and you may have a claim against the creditor and collections agency for doing so.
3. Once contacted, you have the right to dispute the debt and request validation and verification of the debt.  These requests must be made within 30 days of the original contact, and should be in writing.  The collection agency must then provide you with validation or verification (depending on your request) of the debt and written proof of such validation or verification.
4. Your right to tell the collection agency to stop contacting you ever again.  It may contact you only once again and only to tell you the status of the account or to tell you what it is going to do next (i.e. refer to our attorneys to file suit, it is ceasing all contact with you, etc.)
5. Your right to not be harassed or have the collection agency disclose the existence of your debt to third parties.  This means the collection agency may not:
   1. Harass your employer
   2. Make false or misleading statements such as threatening to sue you if the statute of limitation has expired, or threatening to garnish your social security income (which may not be garnished by a private creditor), or threatening to take your children from you.
   3. Accept or request that you provide them with post-dated checks with dates that are more than five days from the date you issue the check – or actually deposit post-dated checks early if it tells you it will not deposit them until the date on the check.
   4. Tell a third party about your debt via phone or letter.
   5. Mail to you postcards or letters in envelopes that fail to identify that it is a collection agency.
   6. Threaten to, or actually, submit false credit information to third parties.
   7. Use obscenities or profanity when speaking to you about your debt.
   8. Tell ANYONE else about the existence of your debt.
   9. Make false statements to you such as claiming to be an attorney if the person is not an attorney; claiming to be calling from a law firm when it is not a law firm; and claiming to be calling from a government agency when not from a government agency.
   10. Misleading you about the type of documents it is providing you – i.e. suggesting that documents are legal documents, or suggesting that legal documents are not legal documents.
   11. Repeatedly calling you with the intent to annoy or harass you.
   12. Use deceptive means to gather information about you from you or third-parties.
   13. Claim that you have committed a crime by not paying the debt.
   14. Claiming that the collector will have you arrested, put in prison, take away your kids, or take any other action unless the collector actually has the legal right to do so and if it has the right to do so, it must actually intend to do so (with VERY FEW exceptions, collectors cannot have you arrested and put you in jail for not paying a debt unless it is owed to the federal government, criminal restitution, government fines, child support, spousal support, etc.)

Related articles by Zemanta

• File An FDCPA Civil Lawsuit Over Debt Collection Violations (consumer-rights.suite101.com)
• Protect yourself from debt collectors (money.cnn.com)

If so, if the Affidavit of Service in your case was issued by On Scene Mediations owned by former police officer Maurice Carroll, your judgment may have been obtained by FRAUD.

The police department raided Maurice Carroll’s home on July 6th and obtained boxes of financial documents and business records.  his company was reportedly bringing in $50k PER MONTH for process services, including these alleged fraudulent services.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Carroll based on the findings of two Justices of the Peace – Justice Melissa Saragosa and Justice Diana Sullivan.  These two Justices uncovered an alleged scam in a multitude of cases filed by Rapid Cash and Richland Holdings that used On Scene Mediations.

If you have a judgment against you from Rapid Cash or Richland Holdings, you should contact the court clerk to determine if On Scene Mediations was the process server that submitted the Affidavit of Service.  If it was, you should inform the Court Clerk that you believe your judgment was obtained by fraud and request that your case be included in the Court’s investigation.   You can read more about this at the Las Vegas Review Journal.

This problem is just the tip of the iceberg.  Mass collections companies and law firms depend on default judgments against uninformed consumers.

If you have been sued, and actually served (unlike in the above story), contact your Bankruptcy Defender and I can help defend your rights to reduce, or in some instances completely avoid, a judgment against you for the alleged debts being collected.

The United States Supreme Court recently decided for a litigant whose student loan interest was included as discharged in his chapter 13 bankruptcy plan.  Federal bankruptcy law, 11 USC 523(a)(8), prohibits discharge of student loans absent a finding of ‘undue hardship’ by the bankruptcy judge.  In this case though, the bankruptcy judge confirmed the chapter 13 plan without requiring the debtor to prove ‘undue hardship.’  The student loan lender did not object to the plan prior to the confirmation of the plan and thus, according to the Supreme Court, the confirmed plan was binding even as to the student loans.

At the Supreme Court oral arguments, Justice Clarence Thomas said that even though the bankruptcy judge made a serious error by confirming a plan that included non-dischargeable student loan interest debt without a finding of ‘undue hardship’ by the bankruptcy judge, that error was not so serious as to void the confirmed chapter 13 bankruptcy payment plan.  The Court also found that the student loan lender could not justify using Rule 60(b)(4) to to void the confirmed plan because the lender failed to participate in the plan objection process in bankruptcy court.

This is a very limited issue and will probably have little impact in your potential chapter 13 bankruptcy.  What I expect is that student loan lenders will be more proactive in monitoring cases where the student loan lenders are listed as creditors.  In other words, they will not ‘fail to object’ as this lender did as to avoid this problem in the future.  BUT if the student loan lender fails to object to a plan that calls for even your complete student loan, principle and interest, to be discharged, if the Bankruptcy judge makes the mistake of confirming the plan (improbable now after this decision) then your loans could be discharged under this decision.

What does this mean for you?

This means that ONLY if the lender does not object to the plan, and your bankruptcy judge makes the mistake of confirming a chapter 13 plan that calls for discharge of student loan debt without an ‘undue hardship’ hearing, will you be able to discharge your student loan debt absent a finding of ‘undue hardship.’

The opinion is available here under ‘United Student Aid Funds v. Espinosa’

To determine if your student loans are eligible for discharge, please contact the Bankruptcy Defender for a free consultation.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A short sale is when your lender or mortgage company agrees to allow the sale of your home at a price that is lower than the balance owed on the loan.  The Bankruptcy Defender can help homeowners by negotiating with your lender that it is in their best interest to accept a sale for less than owed on the loan.  This avoids a lengthy foreclosure process by the lender.

Often real estate agents may tell you that you don’t need an attorney during the short sale process.  You should be cautious of a real estate agent that tells you this.  Without an attorney watching out for your interests, you may end up signing an agreement that makes you liable for the full deficiency remaining after the short-sale.  In other words, you have just helped the bank sell the home in less time and with less trouble, but you are STILL liable for the full loan balance.

Enter into a short-sale with confidence that an attorney is looking out for your best interests during the short-sale process.  Contact the Bankruptcy Defender to have an attorney on your side during the short-sale.  Don’t short-sell your home only to have to file bankruptcy because of a deficiency judgment!

Contact Us Today to get started with short-sale legal representation or for a free consultation for other available options.

Related articles:

• Lost your house? You still have to pay (cnn.com)
• In Short Sales What is a Deficiency Judgment versus the 1099? (activerain.com)
• What Happens When Short Sales Fail? (realestateradiousa.com)

This special includes:

• Intake consultation with the Bankruptcy Defender – Attorney William Devine II.
• Comprehensive tri-merge credit report from all three credit reporting agencies.
• Preparing your Bankruptcy petition.
• Providing notice to all of your creditors to stop those harassing phone calls, foreclosures, and lawsuits.
• Direct access to Attorney William Devine II to answer any of your questions regarding your case.
• Representing you at the 341 Meeting of Creditors hearing.
• Continued representation through the discharge and final closing of your case.

For a FREE bankruptcy case evaluation, call your Bankruptcy Defender, Attorney William Devine II at the Rainey Legal Group at (702) 425-5100 today!

*There is a court filing fee of $299.00 plus the cost of court required credit counseling of $30 that are not included in this special price.  If your creditors object to your bankruptcy petition because of very recent debts (<90 days ago) there may be additional costs to defend such objections.

Although I try to avoid emergency filings, if you have an urgent need to stop a Lawsuit, a Foreclosure, or a Wage Garnishment, I may be able to help you file an emergency bankruptcy petition.  If you are being harassed by Creditors, the Bankruptcy Defender can stop these calls immediately.

Imagine not having to avoid phone calls and knowing that when your phone rings it is not a collections company threatening you.  Oddly enough, after filing Bankruptcy you should be happy to receive phone calls from creditors or collectors.  Why you ask?  If a creditor or collector still calls you after filing bankruptcy,  I may be able to get the Bankruptcy Court to punish them for each and every phone call or letter they send to you.  The punishment may include making them pay YOU money for your trouble for having to answer their call or read their letter.

For more information about Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy, please click on one of the navigation links above.

If you want me to contact you to discuss your options, please call your Bankruptcy Defender at the Rainey Legal Group at (702) 425-5100.