Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Calling bullshit on DA
I had to call bullshit on Debtors Anonymous. I owe about $62,000 to various credit card companies. I know that's wrong and stupid. I know I'm a bad person. And a sick person. I make about $60,000 a year, about half of what I made earlier in the decade. I had been talking to my DA sponsor, who said I should never, ever, ever file bankruptcy. I'd been a good boy and wasn't even late on my payments. I was working two extra jobs and getting help from my ancient Dad to stay current. But the creditors kept jacking up the interest rates and minimum payments. In April, my monthly nut was $1,800. I couldn't stand it. I checked out MMI -- Money Management International, which is a legit agency. A nice lady ran my numbers and said I definitely qualified for Chapter 13 bankruptcy and possibly for Chapter 7. I had already written my DA letters to my creditors, saying I wanted to work out a workable payment and asking for a payment moratorium. Chase and American Express called back and said they could put me in their troubled debtors' plans. But Bank of America went nuts and immediately threatened to sue me. So I called a lawyer. I mentioned I was going to DA. He said he was in a different 12-step group, which I also belong to. After our chat, I started thinking about getting a threat from a zombie bank that was getting tax money to stay in business. The more I thought about it, the more I could dig that I have a perfect right under the laws of this country to file for bankruptcy. So I told the lawyer to go ahead with it. Then I began to find out that I had really screwed myself with the extra jobs I had been working. That was in May. Now it's September. I'm going to meet with the lawyer again this month to figure out when he's going to file. In the meantime, I quit paying everybody and they're calling like crazy, 10-15 times a day, despite my letters saying I have a right under federal law to demand letters, not calls. I just ignore the calls. I listen to their messages, with their trained, barking, angry voices demanding I call back urgently, immediately, OR ELSE. Fuck them. I ignore them. That's the fun part. I went to DA long enough to feel guilty. But not that guilty. My DA sponsor says going bankrupt doesn't fix the problem and I'll debt again. How can I debt again if the whole credit-based economy collapses?
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