Newbie here! Glad to have found this board.

[Matt459]

Hello everyone!

 

Short story about myself. Worked 25 years in the same job and never had a credit issue ever in my life. I was injured at work and it took almost 3 years to get a dime from the employer and social security. Finally was able to get both incomes coming in. Not before disaster struck and pretty much ruined what I had worked for all of my life.

 

It drained our savings and most of my 401k because the sick pay was so little it did not meet anything close to our expenses.

 

After struggling to keep everything paid with almost no income coming in for those years 2 years ago we made a hard decision after looking deeper into it and not knowing if we will get my retirement, social security and healthcare we let two homes go into foreclosure.

 

Our home we lived in for many years and a rental property that we could not keep good renters in.

 

Hard decision knowing at 53 years old my credit would be ruined for many years but the final results we think we made the correct decision.

 

Home we owed 176,000 sold at sheriffs sale for 80,000. 5 years ago it appraised at 290k.

 

Rental we owed 75,000 on sold for 22k at sheriffs sale.

 

So we were going backwards anyway.

 

Now we sit 2 years later and now have my retirement and social security incomes coming in and we went to try and finance a car and they wanted us to pay 22%, told us our credit report was the worst they had ever seen in their life.

 

We had around 12 credit cards and a few credit unions we just stopped paying after running out of money. And some medical bills we are still fighting to get them to pay showed up on our reports.

 

Searching for credit and found this site and was amazed at the information here.

 

At 53 am I doomed for 7 years?

 

We are getting tons of collectors calling, stacks of collectors sending letters etc. Even calling our families asking where we live now.

 

We now live in Florida as we had to leave our old state because we were embarrassed by the loss of both properties.

 

We got a call a few days ago from a collector who left a message who they were from and said if I did not pay xxx by the end of the month they will be filing a judgement against us and will be collecting by taken a portion of my paycheck. Yet they dont know I dont get a paycheck anymore.

 

I have not looked at the credit report in years but the car loan dept told us it is in the low 400s which is pretty bad.

 

We need a car and wont pay 22%, that is plain wrong.

 

I am willing to work and learn here so please if anyone has any comments I sure would appreciate them.

 

Thank you so much for having such a wonderful place to learn and understand what we need to do.

 

Matt

[BamaInvestor]

Bump for the vets to answer...Good luck and Godspeed on your journey.

[HERE WE GO !!!]

Welcome. Don't let that judgment drag on for years. They will tack on interest and penalties, attorney fees, etc.

 

Good luck to you.

[pjmaxwellian]

I'm sorry to hear your story. May I ask why you didn't consider bankruptcy? In addition to the credit card debt, you are also responsible for the property sale deficiency. That's a lot of debt to overcome.

 

I would suggest you get your 3 full credit reports from annualcreditreport.com, your annual freebies, or from each individual CRA. I know it's going to be difficult to look at them, but it's a good place to start.

[phoenixisrising]

With so much CA activity, you should really Opt-out now. Next, you don't want to stir anything that's within SOL and you must know who and what is being reported on your reports so call the big three EQ, TU and X and request a copy of your reports; you can receive one free once a year or if you've been denied credit or such within the last 60 days. Get started on the newbie section reading and read Whychats for med. If they've sent you dunning letters, you need to properly respond within 30 days and this may possibly be done with a dv.

 

Until you have the reports in hand, you don't know what's going on, though you may have an idea about how much. Anything within SOL that is substantial $$ will be a higher risk of sued and judgements so you have to tread lightly and quickly some might bbe better to not touch. Then it will be easier to help you.

ps Don't answer any CA calls.

[NEWSTARTIN2013]

I agree with PMax I think BK would be something worth exploring if its an option.

[mendelssohn]

With so much CA activity, you should really Opt-out now.

Opting out doesn't do anything other than prevent pre-screened offers. CAs can still track you just as easily.

 

As others have said, get a copy of your credit reports and start from there. Once you have more specific information on how the accounts are reporting, people will be able to give you more specific advice.

[Matt459]

I went to a BK attorney and he was honest enough to tell me that filing for bk would not be the best for me because they cannot collect a dime since I am on social security disability.

 

There is no judgement that I know of, never been served any papers. It was just a rude collector calling saying they will file a judgement if I dont return their call.

 

From reading here they cannot just file a judgement, they will have to sue me and in that case they were threathening me to scare me into paying as I have not received any mail about being sued.

 

Since we are 2 1/2 years into teh debt I only have 1 1/2 years before I am out of the SOL so I am hoping the collectors dont pile up on me.

 

Dont know which way to go but thinking about what I read here if I can hang out another 1 1/2 years and be out of SOL would be better then filing BK that would be on my report until I am 63 years old.

 

Acutally confused but I wont give up and willing to learn what is the best option.

 

Thank you all for your gracious remarks.

[Matt459]

Question. I am reading and seeing so much about rebuilding. I do not want to get the cart before the horse but I have Navy Federal Credit Union and many seem to be posting they helped them with a car loan with credit like I have and rebuilding.

 

Since I probably wont be able to get any deletes for 1 1/2 years should I think about applying for a secured card with NFCU and even a car loan from them? Since we need a car and dont want to pay 22%? Or will I get turned down flat?

[phoenixisrising]

 

With so much CA activity, you should really Opt-out now.

Opting out doesn't do anything other than prevent pre-screened offers. CAs can still track you just as easily.

 

As others have said, get a copy of your credit reports and start from there. Once you have more specific information on how the accounts are reporting, people will be able to give you more specific advice.

 

IMO If you're dealing with chump change and primarily aged and inaccuracies, then it's no big deal but when there's $$$$ why would anyone even chance it to decide what the concensus is on that, particularly when it's simple to opt back in?

[Matt459]

Since I am on social security disability does any truly believe should have or should file bankruptcy? Because it was even hard to find a decent place to rent with a foreclosure showing on my report let alone a banktuptcy.

 

I dont think they can touch the social security at all so if they happen to see the employer as retired-disabled maybe they know they cannot touch it.

 

Just learned from here how to access court records.

 

One single judgement, for my home. No other judgements at all.

 

So the lady who called was lying and trying to scare me into paying making me believe she had already won case against me when she did not.

 

I checked both my last county and my new country and shocked to see only one bad mark or lawsuit showing on court records.

 

Rental house did not show any court items such as a lawsuit or anything.

 

I am thinking that is a good thing correct?

 

 

** Also need a mod to contact me through a PM, my email is not correct and someone posted in another thread it has been fixed. It has not. Please mod contact me so I can have the correct email on file with you. Thanks