Bankruptcy $100 Starts

You may have read this before. But what does it really start? You think you’re getting a cheap bankruptcy or an affordable bankruptcy, but what are you getting really?

Your chapter 7 case will not be filed until you have paid the attorney’s fees, plus the filing fee, plus the credit counseling in full and completed the credit counseling. Period. This is true whether you come to me or anyone else.

Some of the $100 Starts guys (definitely not all) might file your case for you for $100 but only if you pay the $281 filing fee for a chapter 13 bankruptcy which is a bankruptcy with a payment plan for 3 to 5 years. Do you want a bankruptcy with a payment plan for 3 to 5 years just so you can afford to pay your attorney to file the case?

$50 Starts

$100 or $50 starts you making your payment plan against your attorney’s fees to your attorney, and that’s all. In my case it starts me taking your creditor phone calls when they start coming in which is usually the following day. Many attorneys won’t even do that. They say they’ll take the calls but then don’t do it until you’ve paid in at least half of your attorney’s fees. Or they’ll straight up tell you that they won’t take any calls until you’ve paid in half of the attorney’s fees.

For $100 will they send letters or make phone calls to your creditors for you? Of course not, neither will I . . . well, maybe one if it’s urgent. But it sounds like that’s what you’re getting doesn’t it? Immediately a bunch of phone calls and letters going out from the attorney’s office to beat down the bad guys. But all you get for it is a payment plan.

What I will do is this; once you have made the down payment to me, I’ll take your creditor phone calls for you. You must start taking your own calls again and when the collection agents call, tell them that you’re going to file for bankruptcy and that your attorney’s name is David Nelson and ask them to call me and verify it at 951 200 3613. Of course, don’t do this until we have met, signed retainers and you have paid me at least a down payment. 98% of your creditors will never call you back directly once you do that. They call me and verify it then leave you alone. Every now and again, one of them gets overzealous and then I write that one a letter. Once they receive the letter they leave you alone.

Affordable Bankruptcy

But even if all you did was start your payment plan, how much of a dent have you made if the attorney charges you $2000 for your affordable bankruptcy? Nada mucho. My prices generally start from $700 for widows, orphans and cancer patients or disabled folks plus the filing fee, up to My usual range which is $1000 to $1500 in attorney’s fees plus the filing fee for most cases and of course if you have several houses or a ton of cars or a lot of income, it can go up steeply from there.

But even so, I’ve had clients with a half a dozen houses and even those cases were only $2100 in attorney’s fees. So, still a strong affordable price compared to most. Normally, I don’t charge for extra creditors or extra collection agencies. Most people don’t have more than about 50 anyway. So, it’s not that much extra work from 20 or 25 to get to 50 data entries in a keyboard.

Of course, If you have a garbage bag full of unsorted collection agents, it’s going to cost you a bit more if you want me to pick through it, sort the duplicates and type up more than that range. Just bring me one statement from each account. IF you bring me your credit report make sure it has the addresses of the creditors on it so that I don’t have to search the web for them. IF it doesn’t, make sure you seach the web for those addresses and put them on the credit report or make sure you bring extra money to pay me to do it.

A great way to know how many creditors you have is to go to AnnualCreditReport.com to get your free annual credit reports. Make sure that you check mark all three credit reports on the page that asks which ones you want. Last I saw if you tried to check one at a time, it wouldn’t let you go back again. Also FreeCreditReport.com is a good place to go. They charge for a credit rating monitoring service but then allow you to get a free credit report with all three merged reports, once you have that, go back immediately and cancel the service before they charge you.

So what makes more sense to you? $100 starts you on a payment plan to pay off $1500 or $2000 in attorney’s fees or $100 starts you on a payment plan to pay off $700 (if you’re disabled or a widow or sick) to $1200 .