Manteca, CA Bankruptcy Law Firms & Lawyers

You should NOT be getting collection calls after you filed bankruptcy. These calls are a violation of 11 U.S.C. Section 362 Automatic Stay. I tell all of my clients to tell all of their creditors to call me and I take care of this problem for them. Even before the bankruptcy is filed, as soon as I have received the first payment to hire me, I have my clients tell any collectors, "I am filing bankruptcy. Call my lawyer Michael Jay Berger 310 271-6223." Once the bankruptcy has been filed, the Bankruptcy Court provides all listed creditors with a Notice of Automatic Stay. I am happy to have my staff inform any creditor that has not gotten the message that my client has filed bankruptcy. I provide the case number, the chapter and filing date, and that is usually enough to solve the problem and stop any harassing phone calls to my clients. In the rare case that calls still continued, I will personally call the offending creditor and threaten to file an Application with the Bankruptcy Cause for an Order to Show Cause re Willful Violation of the Automatic Stay. If you are no longer represented by counsel, or were never represented by counsel, try giving your bankruptcy case number, chapter and filing date to the collectors that keep calling you. Also, give them a copy of the Order of Discharge of Debtor that wiped out your debts to the creditors in question. This should solve your problem.

You do not have to reaffirm a debt on a credit card. However, if it is a secured debt and you want to keep the collateral, then you have to continue to make payments.