This does not mean you do not owe the debt but rather the 3 major credit reporting agencies Experian, Equifax and Transunion will not report debt until ONE YEAR of going into collections and the plan is NOT report any balance under $500.
If you have unpaid debt, if you need help – the medical bills may not show up but creditors can still attempt to collect, call Geraci Law. We’re happy to help.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
You can show that you qualify for a TPD discharge by providing documentation from one of three sources:
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
the Social Security Administration (SSA)
a physician “unfit for any gainful employment’ like a catastrophic Worker’s Compensation or accident
For SSA (Social Security Disability) discharge and you have not received a notice their debts are dischargeable by the government, you can apply for the discharge by showing you are eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. You can qualify for a TPD discharge by providing a copy of their SSA notice of award or Benefits Planning Query showing that the next scheduled disability review will be five to seven years or more from the date of your last SSA disability determination.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
Any number of websites run by people who are NOT lawyers, are trolling for bankruptcy case leads to sell to unknown lawyers. “Lead generation” is when someone who could not get into law school, or didn’t want to, pays $15 for a name like http://www.wannafilebankruptcy.com, or http://www.needtofilebankruptcy.com, or http://www.greatbankruptcylawyers.com” or “bankruptcyrelief”, and makes it look like you are dealing with a bankruptcy attorney. You are not. You are giving your information to some unknown website. Almost always, the owner of the website is hidden. Some websites like this even use the ‘.org” extension, to make it look like they are a charitable organization.
So, the unsuspecting consumer, instead of landing on the website of a real live law firm or attorney that concentrates in bankruptcy, gives their info to a “lead generation” website, that promises to “connect them with a great bankruptcy attorney with lots of experience” or some such puffery. On top of it, this website may sell your information to some unknown attorney, or even more than one.
What happens next? You will get texts or calls from another person you have never heard of, who most likely will, again, NOT be an attorney, or even working for an attorney. It will be from a boiler room answering service trying to “set an appointment” to discuss debt relief. Again, with some law firm who is paying the “lead generation” website for “leads”. The leads are your information this caller wants from you.
Next, you may get an “appointment” with this “bankruptcy law firm or lawyer” who bought your “lead”. But it most likely will NOT be with an attorney. Are you already tired of this? If not, the “appointment” will be with another non-attorney person, possibly an actual employee of the attorney or law firm who paid for your “lead”. They will then tell you that the lawyer they work for can represent you, get money from you, and you will, if you pay them $2000 or so on the internet. Or worse yet, get involved in a Chapter 13 for the next 3-5 years with some unknown person who “bought your lead”. An example of this type of “lead gen” ethics is set forth in the opinions on Recovery Law Group, owned by Wajda ohttps://www.scb.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/Judge%20Burris/opn_85_20-03190_637737785894285410.pdf and Upright Law, owned by a Michigan lawyer named Deighan https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/national-consumer-bankruptcy-law-firm-agrees-pay-more-300000-relief-consumers-and-six-year The judges involved were quite direct in their criticism of these “internet wonders”.
Here’s what the South Carolina judge said about Nicholas Wajda and his Recovery Law Group:
“Recovery Law advertises itself on the internet as a business having offices located throughout the United States, including South Carolina. Recovery Law’s website lists its local address as 1014 Raleigh Ridge, Fort Mill, which is an apartment building. It is a domestic corporation formed in Nevada and is not registered to do business in South Carolina. South Carolina is one of the locations listed on Recovery Law’s website with the option to connect with a “local bankruptcy expert.” You can read the sad tale of a mishandled bankruptcy and Judge Green’s referral to the state attorney disciplinary commission, for yourself.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
1. How MUCH debt do you have? Is it around $10,000 or more in debt you can eliminate, like medical bills, lawsuits, credit cards, personal loans, repossessions? Make a list of all your debt and what it is for. You can find a form at Infotapes.com. Remember, some debts don’t appear on credit reports, so gather your bills, and even old debts can chase you for 5 or 10 years or more
2. What KIND of debt do you have? So if you have $10,000 or more in debt, is it the kind you can get rid of, or the kind you want to pay, like vehicles or credit unions, or is it just government student loans?
So, you can make a short list, using our form, you can get a free credit report to see what your creditors are reporting to credit bureaus.
Consult with a Law Firm
3. Get a free phone mini-consultation. You will need competent advice on whether Chapter 7 or 13 is right for the type and amount of debt, and also for your income level. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can pick your Chapter, because you don’t know as much as Geraci Law’s highly experience attorneys.
4. Start uploading your documents. If we decide that we can help you, we’ll give you access to the Geraci Law ClientCorner, run an Experian soft-pull, get a Kelly Blue Book value on your vehicles, estimate your house value if you have one, and more. You can then upload necessary documents to our Geraci Law ClientCorner client portal, such as pay stubs, bank statements, contracts, bills and tax returns.
Meet with a Bankruptcy Lawyer for Free
5. Get a virtual or in-office interview and get your options, costs, and retain us, little or no money down. Figure a payment plan, and you’ve got yourself a lawyer! We’ll refer you to take a 20 minute online finance course, which costs $25. Take the course before you file. You can take my credit counseling course online for free to see what it’s like.
Review and Sign your Bankruptcy Paperwork
6. We’ll then prepare a bankruptcy petition of about 50 pages for you to review, and assemble the necessary documents you have uploaded, and after you sign it, we’ll file it with the Court.
File your Bankruptcy in Court
7. After we file in court, we’ll post all your documents on your secure Geraci Law ClientCorner portal, where you will get all your messages, instructions, documents, and even videos about your meeting of creditors and taking your second Debtor Education Course. The bankruptcy court requires you to take the second course to get a discharge. I teach it, and the Administrative office of the U.S. Trustee in bankruptcy certifies it. The court is one of the only courses actually taught by an experienced bankruptcy attorney.
Attend your Meeting of the Creditors
8. We will go with you, either by Zoom or in-person, to a brief interview with a Court appointed bankruptcy Trustee to go over your petition and approve it. If you filed Chapter 13, your plan will be confirmed and you will make the necessary monthly payment. If you filed Chapter 7, we will handle any paperwork with vehicles or mortgages you want to keep, and you will get a discharge around 4 months from date of filing.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
Read, “Heating Gas Prices Triple” a press release from Geraci Law. You can read this and more at https://www.infotapes.com/Press.
In Northern Illinois, not to mention Indiana and, of course, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, etc., it’s cold outside right now! So, turn up your heat, but be prepared for a big natural gas bill (thankfully we have gas heat, not electric which is even more costly).
According to NICOR, the natural gas supplier, the price of a therm of natural gas in January 2021 was 29 cents vs. January 2022 is 61 cents per therm. DOUBLE
1) Peoples Gas prices for October 2020 were 24 cents per therm and in October 2021, they are 72 cents per therm — a 198% increase. TRIPLE
2) Nicor Gas prices for October 2020 were 28 cents per therm and in October 2021, they are 61 cents per therm — a 125% increase. MORE THAN DOUBLE
3) North Shore Gas prices for October 2020 were 35 cents per therm and October 2021, they are 67 cents per therm — a 91% increase. JUST ABOUT DOUBLE
Geraci Law is increasing the budget expense for new Chapter 7 and 13 filings accordingly, so clients can meet their living expenses, and pay less to creditors under the “means test” that Democratic leaders (you know who) pushed through in 2005 to make debtors pay more to creditors. But with inflation, bankruptcy filings are designed to insure that debtors can pay their regular living expenses, before they pay creditors, or even discharge their debt so they can pay their gas bills. Thank your politicians for making it tough on everyone!
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
No one wants to file for bankruptcy but life happens and that’s what the Fresh Start Button is for.
An article in The Washington Post titled, “Americans’ top five financial resolutions and how to make them stick” illustrates people’s WANT to budget and save. The author provides some good tips on how to make a budget and stick to it (the subheading – no you don’t need a budgeting app to control your spending is pretty good too).
This article does not account for large amounts of debt. Something in life happens where you are laid off, injured or just simply without the money to save. You use credit to survive and all of a sudden – you are stuck. Saving money becomes far more difficult when you are making minimum payments only to use your credit because your cash is gone.
THAT is where Geraci Law can help. No one wants to file for bankruptcy but life happens and that’s what the Fresh Start Button is for. So many clients are happy and relieved and are ABLE to:
Start a savings account. Think about it – if you are spending $600 per month on minimum payments, you eliminate the debt and you have THAT $600 extra per month. Put 1/2 away in a savings account and in a year – you are at $3,600 in emergency funds (put ALL into a savings account and you are at $7,200).
Invest – see the article. The author references a free course from the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA).
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
So, if you’re smart, you’ll think about filing Chapter 7 now.
And retiring “rich” with a $250,000 pension that will give you an extra $2000 a month when you are old, until you are 92.
Are you over 50, and don’t have a pension? According to a report by the Retirement Equity Lab, over 1/3 of older Americans are just like you… doomed to retire on Social Security.
It’s even worse if you have debts you are paying, even though you could get rid of them now, and start funding an IRA for yourself.
Minimum payments on credit card debt of $500 a month will keep you in debt for the next 23 years. Read your credit card statement, it tell you. How old will you be then?
If you qualify to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy for only 4 payments of $500 or so, you will have no credit card debt on discharge 4 months from now.
You can then put 500/month into an IRA, or $6000 a year for yourself that you would have just paid out for interest.
Adding another $500 to it to reach the max contribution of $6500, and doing that for the next 23 years instead of paying $500 a month on debt, gives you $149,500 at age 72.
And that’s if you weren’t smart enough to buy a “blue chip dividend paying stock” every month, which would have given you another $100,000 in market gains and dividends without taxes.
So, if you’re smart, you’ll think about filing Chapter 7 now. And retiring “rich” with a $250,000 pension that will give you an extra $2000 a month when you are old, until you are 92.
Call Geraci Law to get out of debt fast, and “get rich slow”.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
You can get a free credit report from one of the 3 major credit bureaus. Go to www.freeannualcreditreport.com If you see a debt listed that is not yours, you can contest it by filling out the form on each credit bureau’s dispute site.
You can’t dispute things that are accurate. For instance, if you paid an account after it was late, the late account can show paid, but paid late. If you filed a bankruptcy, that fact that you filed stays on 10 years after your Chapter 7 filing date, and 7 years after your Chapter 13 filing date. If a debt that you received a bankruptcy discharge is listed, that is OK, as long as it shows that you owe nothing because of your bankruptcy discharge. Creditors know what a bankruptcy discharge means: you can’t file a Chapter 7 for another 8 years and have little or no debt except what you agreed to “reaffirm”, or survive discharge. So your credit score often goes up a lot after you get a bankruptcy discharge. Credit scores are bad because you have too much debt to pay, not because you got a discharge and now have no debt, and a fresh start, in most cases!
You can only contest things that are inaccurate. Here’s what Equifax says you can dispute:
• Personal information: Your name, addresses, Social Security number or date of birth.
• Account information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete: For example, if late payments are being reported on one of your accounts but you have always paid your balance on time and in full.
• Mixed credit files: If someone else’s information is being reported on your credit file. This may happen if a father and son (Sr. and Jr.) have the same name, for instance.
• Duplicate reporting of an item: One example might be a debt listed twice.
• Information that may indicate fraud or identity theft: These would be credit accounts, including collection accounts, on your credit report that you don’t recognize.
Whether you’re contacting a lender or the credit bureaus, provide all the evidence and documents you can to support your dispute, such as an account statement verifying an account balance. Give details about why you believe the information in the credit report is inaccurate or incomplete.
What should I expect after filing a dispute?
If you file a dispute with the three nationwide credit bureaus, you can generally expect to receive the results of your dispute within 30 days. If the information is found to be inaccurate, your credit reports will be updated, generally within about 30 days.
If the result of the investigation finds that the information is accurate, it will remain on your credit reports. If you still believe the information is inaccurate or incomplete, and you have additional information that can help support your dispute, you can file your dispute again with the credit bureau. You also have the option to provide a brief statement on your credit reports summarizing your dispute, which can help explain your situation. Or you could contact the creditor to attempt to resolve the issue.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
Student Loan collections to resume in 2022 – read Geraci Law press release and PFG Article!
Geraci Law released the following press release regarding student loans. Read this release and more @ https://www.infotapes.com/Press
As of December 31, 2019, 10,347,000* borrowers were in default or 91+ days delinquent out of 44,865,000 borrowers with outstanding debt, according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s April 2, 2021 press release. During COVID, federal student loan interest, and collections, were paused. Will there be a “Jubilee” of forgiveness. Not likely. But there may be relief in bankruptcy for loans over 10 years old if a bill introduced in the Senate on August 21, 2021 passes both houses of Congress. https://abi-org.s3.amazonaws.com/Newsroom/FreshStartAct.pdf
The problem with this bill is that it requires schools with a high default rate to pay to the Treasury up to 50% of the amount forgiven.
In August, the President extended to Jan. 22, 2022, the moratorium that 9 of every 10 student loan borrowers have taken advantage of. Will the forgiveness bill pass before then? Probably not, if ever. Will the moratorium get extended again. Good chance, since the Democrats want to get elected in November 2022. Will student loans disappear? Not likely. Why not? Because America’s higher education gets fat by raising tuition and have students borrow our tax money to pay for a 4 year vacation from work. So the colleges and universities are opposed to any form of student loan forgiveness that would cost them a nickel, or reduce enrollment in super-expensive post-high school education.
What to do in the meantime? Get ready to pay your student loan, since it can’t be forgiven in bankruptcy. No fresh start for you, B.A. in Philosophy!
But wait there’s more!
Attorney Peter Francis Geraci wrote an article titled, “Student Loan Forgiveness for the Permanently Disabled.” You can read this article and more @ https://www.infotapes.com/Articles.
If you are receiving Social Security Disability, the Social Security Administration has determined that you are permanently and totally disabled and cannot engage in meaningful employment. In fact, if you do engage in meaningful employment paying over $500 a month, you are then deemed to be able to work. While you are disabled, you should apply for an “administrative discharge” of any student loan obligation. A family member can help you with this. You do not need an attorney.
You should not think of filing a bankruptcy to discharge student loans, therefore, if you are receiving Social Security Disability. Just inform the student loan servicer that you are totally, permanently disabled, and ask them to forgive the loan.
Dial 1-800-CALL-PFG for a free phone mini-consultation, or make an appointment online 24/7 at www.infotapes.com. Bankruptcy laws are in place to help you. Who knows bankruptcy like Geraci Law? Geraci Law has 30,000 5-star reviews since November 2016!
since November 2016!
Bankruptcy Attorney News - Peter Francis Geraci Law, call us at 800 CALL PFG 