PINKLADY'S STORY...I had to do it.

Date: Thu, 08/17/2006 - 08:00

Submitted by PinkLady
on Thu, 08/17/2006 - 08:00

Posts: 1720 Credits: [Donate]

Total Replies: 16

I filed BANKRUPTCY 2 days ago. Things were getting out of hand

I joined this sight June of 2006 and it has provided me with tons of helpful information.
Like many people, I was caught up in the PDL trap and didn't know what I was going to do. By the time I closed one account and froze the other, I owed 15 PDL companies. I was also trying to battle 8 credit card companies and I thought I was going to lose my mind. All but one of the credit cards was either charged-off or in collections and most of them was not trying to accept payment arrangements. Most of my credits cards started while I was in college working part-time as a waitress. When I graduated from college I was trying to join the working world full-time and figuring out where I was going to reside. While moving around from home to home, state to state and job to job, I was getting behind on my credit cards. With all the moving past due utility bills and other misc. items were falling into collections, so my credit was getting worse by the year. When I finally got established in one spot and found a good paying job (the one I am currently at) I had to evaluate my situation and figure out what I needed to do. I decided to join a debt consolidation company I found online and started making one monthly payment to go towards my accounts and things were starting to get better and the collection calls stopped. However, my spending habits got bad, because I was making good money and hey I felt the need to spend it on non necessary items. So when it came time to repair the car or whatever else was necessary I had no money, so what did I do..PAYDAY LOANS. Big mistakeâ€¦it started out small with only one and this one became very large within months. (My only store front PDL) So I was not able to afford the bi-weekly fees on top of my other bills so I looked online for another one to cover the fees on my first one and it all went down hill from there. I had so many PDL' fees coming from my account I could not afford my monthly consolidation program anymore. I had no idea what to do. I cancelled my consolidation program that I was in for 2 years and left my credit cards unattended for quite some time, coming up with excuses and trying to avoid the collection calls. I was in that program for two years and did not get one thing paid off. (They are now being sued for their outrageous monthly fee) After about a year I decided to try another consolidation program locally and she advised me to close my account and at that time I only had 8 of the 15 PDL's. We came up with a monthly payment arrangement and she sent a proposal to all of my creditorsâ€¦I never made my first monthly payment and things continued to get worse so I looked to more PDL's, here come the remaining 7. I was in way over my head and finally went back to the local consolidation agency and said here is my first payment...HELP ME. Again I had to freeze another account and then the nasty collection calls started and that is when I found this website. 15 PDL's, 8 credit cards and several things in collections on top of my regular monthly bills. I was served two notices for court dates of two of my creditors suing me and was threatened by other creditors with more. I owed so many people my credit counselor told me I could not afford the monthly payment that included all of my creditors. So we started out with just involving the PDL's and the credit card companies that were harassing me the most. Well the ones who were not getting money kept calling over and over and the ones who were not happy with the monthly amount they were getting kept calling over and over. I finally went and saw a bankruptcy attorney and he advised it was probably the best thing to do. I had to take a credit counseling course prior to filing and when he evaluated my situation he also advised the best thing for me was bankruptcy. So I came up with money with the help of my parents and filed bankruptcy as of 8/15/06. It's not an easy thing to and it was a very hard decision but it was the best thing for me to do. I'm still young and I have a good job and I have definitely learned my lesson and I am ready for a fresh start. I know I just rattled a bunch of stuff but that's my story in a summed up version.

Thanks for sharing that PinkLady, I know it's not easy to "confe

Thanks for sharing that PinkLady, I know it's not easy to "confess your sins," but it can be therapeutic to just throw it all out there and get it off your chest.

Your story might inspire someone on this forum to take control of their situation, so you've actually unloaded all of the stress and helped someone at the same time by sharing your situation.

I wish you the best of luck with your fresh start!