Civil Summons

[Blue In KY]

I live in Ky. I received a civil summons for a medical bill that my husband and I had been paying on but not regularly.. I did write the company and told them that we intended to pay the bill and would pay on it when we had the money. I explained to them that my husband had lost his job we were living on unemployment and the pay i got from my 3 hour a day job. Then we discovered that God had given us a new addition that was totally unexpected. We had declared bankruptsy but didn't claim the medical bill on it because we intended to pay it. We received no reply from the letter and no further bills until yesterday when we received a summons. On the summons it states the amount $289.43 we owe, and that they are entitled to $43.41 additional attorney fees. But when we called they told us we owed over $400. When the amount is listed in the notice is that all we owe or do we owe the amount they stated on the phone.. And if I pay this bill directly to the hospital instead of the rude man that we talked to would that be the same thing as paying the bill.. Would it stop the procedure if we paid it to the hospital instead of the person listed.. I still have old bills from the first time we received the bill. I would just much rather deal with the hospital instead of the very rude man on the phone.
Thank you

[SevenWishes]

You should ask for an itemization of the $400+ bill. It is likely some combination of interest and some sort of late fee that is added.

Usually the creditor itself (in this case the hospital) will be glad to deal with you directly and this is always preferable to dealing with the collection agency. It is possible that you could even negotiate to owe them less than the full amount (however, this is best usually done through an attorney, first off, sometimes (to use your example), the hospital will simply tell you to call the collection agency they had to spend money on rather than deal with you, but that usually doesn't happen).

I do want to note that if any of the creditors whose debts were dismissed in your bankruptcy get wind that there is an unsecured debt that you did not include on the bankruptcy and are now paying on, they can petition to court to nullify your bankruptcy. You will then owe again on all the debts that were wiped out and you have to wait a period before you can reinitiate the bankruptcy action (it varies by state, here in NY it is 180 days).

[djohnson]

Originally Posted by SevenWishes

You should ask for an itemization of the $400+ bill. It is likely some combination of interest and some sort of late fee that is added.

Usually the creditor itself (in this case the hospital) will be glad to deal with you directly and this is always preferable to dealing with the collection agency. It is possible that you could even negotiate to owe them less than the full amount (however, this is best usually done through an attorney, first off, sometimes (to use your example), the hospital will simply tell you to call the collection agency they had to spend money on rather than deal with you, but that usually doesn't happen).




"

I do want to note that if any of the creditors whose debts were dismissed in your bankruptcy get wind that there is an unsecured debt that you did not include on the bankruptcy and are now paying on, they can petition to court to nullify your bankruptcy. You will then owe again on all the debts that were wiped out and you have to wait a period before you can reinitiate the bankruptcy action (it varies by state, here in NY it is 180 days).

uh not exactly,
when did you file and what chapter did you file? Did you sign a reaffirmation or just not include it? Was it on your credit report at that time? You may still be able to claim it in the bankruptcy.

[Blue In KY]

When we filed for bankruptsy we had only been gettin bills that had a zero balance on the medical bill.. So it wasn't on our credit report only after our bankruptsy was disharged did we start getting bills with an amount on them.
We told our attorney that we wanted to pay the hospital bills, but we hadn't really gotten any yet and I think we signed a paper stating that.
So even though we received a summons we can still pay the bill directly to the hospital instead of the rude man that we talked to on the phone..
Thank you so much for all your advice I really appreciate it..