Free Counseling Videos

Thinking about what to do about your debts? Afraid of the unknown?

Watch short videos with Bankruptcy Attorney Peter Francis Geraci about bankruptcy, credit, and debt.

Thinking about what to do about your debts? Afraid of the unknown?

Attorney Peter Francis Geraci produced credit counseling videos about bankruptcy, credit and debt, you can watch all for FREE at https://www.infotapes.com/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyInformationVideos

You will learn about:

Medical Bills
Personal Loans
Payday Loans
Suspended Driver’s License
Can I keep a credit card?
How does Chapter 7 bankruptcy work?
How does Chapter 13 bankruptcy work?
What does loan modification mean in bankruptcy?
How do I keep my house and vehicles?
What does bankruptcy do for my credit score?

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 ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com.

Heating Gas Prices Triple!

Inflation hurting everyone!

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!

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com.

Who your Lawyer is, DOES Make a Difference

An attorney representing creditors scrutinizes your Chapter 7 or 13 petition, looking for assets they can take, or money they can get you to pay creditors.

Below is an article written by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci read this and more at https://www.infotapes.com/Articles

Geraci Law founder Peter Francis Geraci likes to say “Why pay the same and not get the name?” Even worse, why THINK you’re paying an attorney to protect you, but end up losing your home or other asset?

Remember, creditors look at your bankruptcy petition, and so does the United States Trustee and their minions. An attorney representing creditors scrutinizes your Chapter 7 or 13 petition, looking for assets they can take, or money they can get you to pay creditors.

Geraci Law attorney Nathan E. Curtis recently defeated a Chapter 7 trustee in one case, and a Chapter 13 trustee in another. In Will County, Illinois, the Chapter 7 trustee wanted to take $12,000.00 the Geraci clients had claimed exempt as funds from the sale of their home, because Illinois law says the “homestead” exemption is only good for a year. Attorney Curtis pointed out to the Court that, since the Chapter 7 was filed within a year of receiving the sale proceeds, the Trustee could not claim it by holding the Chapter 7 case open and waiting a year to object. This saved the Debtors $12,000.00.

In the Chapter 13 case, Geraci Law attorney Nathan Curtis defeated the claim of the Chapter 13 trustee that life insurance proceeds of $50,000 were “disposable income” that had to be paid to creditors. Attorney Curtis pointed out that only “current monthly income”, not a one-time payment, much less a life insurance payment that is exempt from creditors, may be required to be used to pay creditors. The Bankruptcy Judge agreed, and Geraci Law saved the widow from having to use life insurance to pay creditors.

Who you choose for an attorney DOES make a difference!

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com.

Debt Collectors can text you, email you, and contact you on social media!

The federal agency Consumer Financial Protection Bureau doesn’t seem to be protect you much when they passed new rules that let debt collectors email you, text you, and message you on social media.

Read article below by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci and more @ https://www.infotapes.com/Articles

The federal agency Consumer Financial Protection Bureau doesn’t seem to be protect you much when they passed new rules that let debt collectors email you, text you, and message you on social media. They do have to identify themselves as debt collectors. On social media, they can send you a fried request. They have to give you the option to opt out of being contacted online. Any messages have to be private, not on you public or contacts page.

The good news is that you will be more aware of collection activities, so you can do something about your financial mess before you get sued or garnished. Of course, most people who have debt collectors contacting them don’t do much of anything if it is just one small debt. But if you have $10,000 or more in consumer debt, outside of student loans, and you are getting emails and texts, you can be sure that it just isn’t going away, and debts have at least a 5 year statute of limitation before the debt is to old to collect

Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcy stop all collection efforts during the bankruptcy proceedings, and stop all collection permanently on debts you obtain a discharge for. The sooner you contact Geraci Law if you have over $10,000 in debt you can’t pay, the sooner you will be able to decide what to do.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com.

Can Bankruptcy Discharge of Debt Help My Credit?

Studies by Harvard and the Federal Reserve show that people who file bankruptcy and generally in a better position than those who remain in debt.

Read this article by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci titled “Can Bankruptcy Discharge of Debt Help My Credit?” and more at https://www.infotapes.com/Articles

Studies by Harvard and the Federal Reserve show that people who file bankruptcy and generally in a better position than those who remain in debt. The Federal Reserve said,

“[people who file bankruptcy] experience a sharp boost in their credit score after bankruptcy, whereas credit scores recover at a much slower pace for individuals who remain [in debt].

The credit score of bankrupt individuals exceeds the credit score of insolvent individuals by 40-80 points. In addition, those who go bankrupt open new unsecured accounts post-bankruptcy at a higher rate (by around 15 percentage points) than those who don’t file bankruptcy, while the number of inquiries is very similar across the two groups.

This indicates a difference in access to credit, not demand for credit. [The Federal reserve] conclude[ed] from this evidence that the ability to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy is associated with better access to credit, and while both insolvency and bankruptcy are forms of default, the debt discharge associated with bankruptcy leaves filers in a better financial position than individuals who become insolvent in similar circumstances.”

If you are contemplating bankruptcy, you have probably received charge cards in the mail, and bought things with no money down. After a bankruptcy, that easy credit will be harder to get. Most times, you can get a charge card by giving a $400 or more savings account with the issuing bank, so that if you do not pay the charge card, they can deduct from your bank account.

Many clients may be able to buy a home within a few years after filing a bankruptcy or even during a bankruptcy. How do I know? Every week an old client calls me and asks for proof that their bankruptcy got rid of their old bills, so they can give it to their mortgage company. Mortgage companies want to know that people buying houses don’t have creditors chasing them, because those creditors can put liens on the house. Also, if you have a lot of bills to pay, you probably can’t afford house payments. Filing bankruptcy may be the first step to buying a house.

Geraci Law makes it easy for you to apply for mortgages and credit. We post your filed bankruptcy petition on your Client Corner so you can log in and get it when you need it. We provide you with any help you need to show that you got out of debt.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

Can I Get Rid of a Vehicle By Filing Bankruptcy?

Sometimes you just don’t want a vehicle. It may be worth far less than you owe, or it may be a junk that costs too much to repair. So the question is, how do you get rid of it and get something else? You’re probably not going to just get rid of the vehicle and walk or take the bus. So there are a variety of situations, and you need good legal advice before you make a false move.

Title loans Do you have an old vehicle with a title loan? If you do, the title loan company has a lien on the title. They will want you to pay them before they release the title. If the vehicle doesn’t run, or has been in an accident, you can’t junk it unless you get the title. Title loan companies seldom will take a vehicle back, rarely even repossess vehicles, because they don’t loan you enough money to make it worthwhile. If you file a bankruptcy, we can provide that you surrender the vehicle, then file a procedure called a motion to exempt and redeem. The court values the vehicle, and all you have to do is pay the value of the vehicle to the title company in which they are required to give you the title. This works very well when you have a junker is only worth $100 salvage value.

Under water Second situation that is very common is that you have a vehicle where you have a loan on it, in the loan payoff is much more than the vehicle is worth, and you don’t want it. Let’s say you bought a used car, and it’s now worth $8000. But you have 40 payments of $350 left to pay, or $14,000, the payoff and that depending upon how long you’ve financed it for, might be as much is $11,000 or $12,000. So if you wanted to give the vehicle back to the finance company, they would sell it at auction, probably $4000, and soak you with the auction costs, if you credit for the $4000 sales price, and you’d end up owing 8000 on the repossessed vehicle. Chapter 7 filing can eliminate that $8000 deficiency.

So Chapter 7 works very well when you owe a lot more than the vehicle is worth. If you want the over financed vehicle in a chapter 7, sometimes, we can make a deal, and a reaffirmation. So you can either surrender a vehicle that’s over financed and eliminate the deficiency, or possibly we can negotiate a better deal in bankruptcy, but you have to be willing, under Chapter 7 to surrender it if they don’t give you a better deal. There is another option called 722 redemption, similar to the junker, but if the value of the vehicle is $8000, you have to come up with the full value of the vehicle, or finance it, and if you do not come up with the $8000 722 redemption, you probably be financing it at 30% interest which is a terrible deal and you’d be right back where you started.

Chapter 13 The third situation involves keeping the vehicle, and filing chapter 13 to pay what the vehicle is worth, if the vehicle is over two and half years old, and even if it’s not 2 ½ years old to pay it at the prime rate +2%. Now if that sounds complicated, it is. One problem that we are running into is people are financing vehicles for 72 or 84 months, and then coming in to file a chapter 13, which can only last 60 months. They may even have a 0% interest rate. So if you have a long way to pay on a vehicle, and you’ve already got 0% interest, chapter 13 doesn’t help you. Depending upon your income, it may be wise you can qualify for chapter 7, to get rid of this monster and get a reasonably priced vehicle with a low payment.

There’s a lot more to vehicles in bankruptcy. Geraci law lawyers have filed over 100,000 bankruptcy cases, many of which involve cars, both chapter 7 and chapter 13. If your only debt is a car, you should not be doing a bankruptcy. But if your problem is greater than just the car payment, let’s look at what filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 can do about your whole picture, and where the vehicle fits in.

That’s why you need an experienced Geraci law bankruptcy lawyer to figure all this stuff out.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

When Will Creditors Stop Bothering Me?

If you are having trouble with bill payments, you should get a consultation with an experienced bankruptcy attorney before you make more payments to creditors.

Check out Chapter 20 in Attorney Peter Francis Geraci’s “Complete Book on Bankruptcy.” This chapter is below, read more @ https://www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com/

CHAPTER #20 When Will Creditors Stop Bothering Me?

The minute the bankruptcy case is filed. In the meantime, don’t talk to them, leave them on the answering machine. If they call you at work, get their info, give them your home number, and say “My employer does not allow calls at work, please call me at home.” These are magic words under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that require them to stop calling you at work. You can tell them that!

After we have prepared a petition listing your debts and assets, and prepared answers to required questions about your personal actions in relation to money, the bankruptcy petition is filed with the Clerk of the Bankruptcy Court. Of course, your attorney fee must be paid in full, unless you have made other arrangements. After you have paid your attorney, you pay the filing fee, or court cost. It is about $300.00 (When I started practicing bankruptcy law, in 1974, the court cost was only $30.00.) This must be paid in the form of a money order or cashier check payable to the Clerk of U.S. Bankruptcy Court, since the Clerk does not take personal checks.

After the Clerk has stamped a bankruptcy case number, or docket number, on the petition, notice can be sent out to all creditors that you are under the jurisdiction of the Bankruptcy Court. Then, Federal law requires that all collection action stop.

After you have made up your mind what to do, I generally advise you to stop paying all creditors except the ones which will survive a bankruptcy. If you are having trouble with bill payments, you should get a consultation with an experienced bankruptcy attorney before you make more payments to creditors.

You may be wasting your money right now by making minimum payments on bills that don’t go down after you make the payment, or you may be paying money to creditors that you will get rid of, instead of creditors that you must pay.

It is important to understand that thinking about filing bankruptcy, or even talking about it, is not the same as giving money to an attorney and actually having a docket number assigned by the Clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Even giving money to an attorney is not enough. The case actually has to be filed with the Clerk. It is then that the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code which protect you from creditor harassment, bill collectors, wage assignments and lawsuits come into effect.

Those provisions are briefly known as the “automatic stay” provisions. This protection is known as the automatic stay, because the Bankruptcy Code provides that all creditor action is automatically stopped, or stayed, when a petition is filed with the Clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. This “automatic stay” is truly automatic, and even if a creditor does not know a bankruptcy case has been filed, you are protected from their actions.

For instance, if money is taken out of our paycheck by a creditor after the date a bankruptcy petition has been filed, it must be put back as soon as you notify your payroll department that you were under the protection of the automatic stay provisions of the Bankruptcy Code at the time the money was deducted.

I routinely provide my clients with notices entitled “Automatic Stay”, which state the language of the Code. I mail them to the client when the case is filed, so that the client can notify payroll, if necessary, or tell the docket number to any bill collector who calls. Sometimes clients get these in the mail, and even though we have discussed it thoroughly, they call up and say, “What are all these papers? Do you mean I have to notify my creditors? What am I paying you for?

I then explain again that this is for your benefit, so that you quickly have something in your hand to give to anyone who wants proof that you have filed a bankruptcy petition. Creditors and payroll departments will immediately stop any action if they know definitely that a bankruptcy has been filed.

Problem: Keith has a wage assignment from a finance company, and all his creditor cards are behind and bill collectors are calling him constantly.

The Peter Francis Geraci Chapter 7 or 13 Solution: The filing of any bankruptcy petition stops all creditor action. When Keith’s bankruptcy case is filed, the wage assignment has to stop, and no one can even call him on the telephone.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

What Does Bankruptcy Cost?

A lot less than paying debt that you can’t pay!

Check out Chapter 9 of Attorney Peter Francis Geraci’s “Complete Book on Bankruptcy” at https://www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com/

CHAPTER #9 What Does Bankruptcy Cost?

A lot less than paying debt that you can’t pay. Anyone can come up with $900 or $1000 to put down on a Chapter 7, and pay the rest over time. Anyone can come up with the court costs to file a Chapter 13, and pay the rest in with their Chapter 13 payment.

Every lawyer charges exactly the same for Chapter 13, so don’t bother shopping for fees for Chapter 13. Why? In almost every court, the court rules provide for a standard fee for all services. So, it’s not the fee that you use to pick out an attorney.

Same with Chapter 7. Some people think everyone with a law license is the same. That’s why the jails are full. Lots of people who don’t know how to pick a decent attorney. People who file bankruptcy often have no confidence in themselves or their family or their budgets, and panic! They think, “I have to pay a big fee all at once and I have no money”.

If you panic, you might call every lawyer who advertises bankruptcy and say “How much is a bankruptcy”? If you actually get an answer to that, here is who you might probably be are talking to:

A lawyer who got fired or could not work with anyone so he paid $500 for a website design. He rents a desk in an office center, and has no employees, works from his cell phone, returns his calls you leave on voice mail while he is driving from traffic court to a real estate closing to a bankruptcy court meeting, the only 3 cases he has this week. “I will do your case for $800 come on in” he says. You say “don’t you want to know anything about me or what is involved before you tell me $800?” He says, “no, come on in, bring your money”

You show up and sure enough, it’s either a rented desk in “Armstrong Office Suites”, or it smells funny and not very professional. He is late. So you wait, he shows up and says “sorry, I was in Court” and brings you into his office. The place is a mess. He actually has a fax machine on his desk.

“Did you bring the $800?” he says. “Don’t you want to know anything about me or what is involved before you tell me $800?” you say for the 2nd time. (Oh, you also had to wait a week before he could “fit you in”.)

Anyway, he then tells you that instead of $800, because you have a house and car, he meant $800 to file, plus the court cost, and there will be additional costs if “anything goes wrong”.

You say, “whaaat? What do you mean, if anything goes wrong?” He says, “don’t worry, usually nothing usually wrong”! So much for the “UNKNOWN ATTORNEY”. But, if he gets your $800, he at least has his rent for the month.

At Geraci Law, we get a lot of people who have been elsewhere and are unhappy. Read our reviews. Some people focus on the attorney’s fee in choosing an attorney. My office gets calls from about a hundred people a year who have had Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 cases goofed up because they tried to save $100 on attorney fees.

Sometimes, in fact, regularly, we tell people NOT to file bankruptcy. That is why we have never “lost” a house or had any real “trouble”. So, one cost of a bankruptcy might be getting bad advice or bad representation by your attorney. The attorney’s fee doesn’t matter, since you can’t save much from one attorney to another.

So, bankruptcy is pretty cheap. If you had $20,000 to pay your creditors, you’d probably give it to them. If you could settle all your debt for $5000, you would. So why try to beat up your lawyer before you have all the facts in front of, by calling around to unknown lawyers to get them to tell you something on the phone? No smart lawyer will give you any real advice on the phone, much less quote you a firm fee for something they know nothing about.

Always get a free in office consultation. If you really want the cheapest lawyer in town, then go to the one who tells you $500 on the phone, and pray that you will be happy! You get what you pay for. At Geraci Law, we work with almost everyone, but $500 was a fee in 1975, not 40 years later in 2015. Every year, one of the “cheap” bankruptcy lawyers gets indicted or closes up, so watch out who you think is giving you a “cheap price”. The so-called “largest bankruptcy firm in the world”, “Macey & Aleman Legal Helpers” closed up suddenly in 2013 and did not refund fees to clients, who then filed claims in its bankruptcy for the $1400 or whatever fee they lost when the place shut its doors.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

How to Dispute False Item on Your Credit Report

It’s not mine, get it off my credit report! How long does bankruptcy stay on?

Article written by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci – read more like this @ https://www.infotapes.com/Articles

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.

Equifax https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-dispute/

Experian https://www.experian.com/disputes/main.html

Trans Union https://service.transunion.com/dss/login.page?dest=dispute

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.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

The Hidden Health Costs of Being in Debt

Money worries can make you sick – really sick.

Below is an article written by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci regarding the hidden costs of owing. If you are worried about medical, owing medical bills could make health conditions even worse! Read more articles by Attorney Peter Francis Geraci at https://www.infotapes.com/Press.

An article in the June 2021 Men’s Health magazine brings together a number of scientific studies concluding that money problems can kill you. The article quotes the director of the Jackson Heart study as saying that financial stress is a major cause of heart disease, and money issues can cause chronic 24/7 stress that can raise blood pressure, and cause heart disease.

The U.S. Financial Health Pulse: 2020 Trends report states: “As of August 2020, more than two-thirds of people in America (approximately 167 million people) were Financially Coping or Financially Vulnerable. These individuals are struggling to spend, save, borrow, or plan in ways that allow them to be resilient and seize opportunities over time.” https://finhealthnetwork.org/research/u-s-financial-health-pulse-2020-trends-report/

Geraci Law founding member Peter Francis Geraci says that the overwhelming comments in over 30,000 five-star reviews from Geraci Law clients in the last 5 years is “stress relief”. Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings eliminate the stress caused by failure to be able to meet financial obligations. Both types of consumer bankruptcy allow people to re-set their budgets and balance their income and expenses. Chapter 7 allows elimination of debt, while continuing to pay vehicles and mortgages. Chapter 13 allows consolidation of debt into a monthly or biweekly affordable payment. Both, according to Mr. Geraci, go a long way to relieving stress, which lowers blood pressure and helps overall health.

Read ALL ABOUT DEBT RELIEF at www.bankruptcybookbypeterfrancisgeraci.com

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CHAPTER #20 When Will Creditors Stop Bothering Me?

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