headunderwater
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Georgia
Some background:
My mother and father separated in '08 after a messy bankruptcy and got formally divorced in '12. Both of my parents are immigrants, my mother is now a US citizen and my father was on his greencard. He is now illegal. During their marriage, my father bought a ton of things under a bunch of credit cards, all on my mother's name, fell behind on payments (including car/house payments, but both of those assets were seized). After my parents divorced, my mother thought all of our debts were gone. She worked hard for 6 years supporting me and my sister and now she has a decent credit score. It turns out that the bankruptcy case was dismissed because of some mistakes my father made and that most of the charges have not disappeared. However, it has been 6 (!!!) years since we have heard anything from any of the banks or collectors.
In Octobor 2013, she got sent something in the mail from LVNV stating she owed some money (<1000$) and she promptly sent in an identity theft/fraud affidavit and the thing got dropped. In June 2014, she got sent another letter in the mail claiming she owes 4400$ (3400$ + interest) and that they were going to garnish her paycheck. We obviously cannot afford this, so we called them and told them the fraud situation and they said they would send us something in the mail. This was on July 8th. Since that time, they have sent something to the bank trying to claim all the money she has sent in on a CD (to rebuild her credit) and they have sent another garnishment letter. We have called multiple times asking for the fraud paperwork and every time the person in charge of our case simply says that it's not his department and he doesn't know when the letter will be sent because they are very busy. What can we do about this?
Should we just settle? What would be a fair price to settle? Is there any way to hold my father accountable for any of this?
We currently live in a small apartment and my mom has two cars (one for my mom and one for my sister, who commutes to school), total value of around 33000$ (gifts from my uncles who are pretty well off and have been helping us stay afloat). Should she file for bankruptcy? What kind? The worry is that now that these collections are coming in, more will be on the way.
Thank you very much,
headunderwater
Georgia
Some background:
My mother and father separated in '08 after a messy bankruptcy and got formally divorced in '12. Both of my parents are immigrants, my mother is now a US citizen and my father was on his greencard. He is now illegal. During their marriage, my father bought a ton of things under a bunch of credit cards, all on my mother's name, fell behind on payments (including car/house payments, but both of those assets were seized). After my parents divorced, my mother thought all of our debts were gone. She worked hard for 6 years supporting me and my sister and now she has a decent credit score. It turns out that the bankruptcy case was dismissed because of some mistakes my father made and that most of the charges have not disappeared. However, it has been 6 (!!!) years since we have heard anything from any of the banks or collectors.
In Octobor 2013, she got sent something in the mail from LVNV stating she owed some money (<1000$) and she promptly sent in an identity theft/fraud affidavit and the thing got dropped. In June 2014, she got sent another letter in the mail claiming she owes 4400$ (3400$ + interest) and that they were going to garnish her paycheck. We obviously cannot afford this, so we called them and told them the fraud situation and they said they would send us something in the mail. This was on July 8th. Since that time, they have sent something to the bank trying to claim all the money she has sent in on a CD (to rebuild her credit) and they have sent another garnishment letter. We have called multiple times asking for the fraud paperwork and every time the person in charge of our case simply says that it's not his department and he doesn't know when the letter will be sent because they are very busy. What can we do about this?
Should we just settle? What would be a fair price to settle? Is there any way to hold my father accountable for any of this?
We currently live in a small apartment and my mom has two cars (one for my mom and one for my sister, who commutes to school), total value of around 33000$ (gifts from my uncles who are pretty well off and have been helping us stay afloat). Should she file for bankruptcy? What kind? The worry is that now that these collections are coming in, more will be on the way.
Thank you very much,
headunderwater
