Legal Question in Bankruptcy in Pennsylvania

PA Judgements from credit cards

i have $5500 of credit card debt between 2 credit cards that were written off by the credit card companies but than sold to other collection lawyers. today i received 2 civil notices of a judgment hearing...

i'm disabled, have no income, receive food stamps and medicaid, waiting for SS disability to be approved. i had been living on my money from sale of home 3 yrs ago but that ran out and now my boyfriend is paying to support me. all i own is a 2003 car that is paif off with a book value of $5000, no money in bank, nothing else in my name.

I also have another credit card for 2400 that i keep minimum payments up on.

I cant call a debt consilidation company as i dont have their minimum amount of debt for them to help which is $10,000

What should i do??? about 9 yrs ago my ex husband filed chapter 7 bankruptsy in ny and i was dragged into it due to some joint debt, can i file chapter 7 and protect myself??? or what could they take or do to me if i just ignore the judgments???

Please help, i have been crying for the last 4 hrs over this and no local lawyers are open because its a holiday here. the hearing is scheduled in 8 days on 4-1-08 and i cant come up with $1600 that quickly for a bankruptsy.


Asked on 3/21/08, 4:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Re: PA Judgements from credit cards

I am too far away to be of direct assistance, but here are a few suggestions/comments. First, if Ch. 7 bankruptcy turns out to be the best solution for you, you can file that after any judgment is entered, as well as before, and that will stop collection activity immediately. Secondly, the amount at issue may be too small to warrant the expense of filing bankruptcy. On Monday, call your county bar association and ask if there is a low-income legal clinic or help-line to assist you. In addition to discussing bankruptcy, you should ask for information about your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Here is a link to a government publication about it: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf. See especially section 805(c) about stopping collection communication from the creditors.

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Answered on 3/21/08, 5:22 pm


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