Evergreen Park Bankruptcy Lawyer On Common Non-Filing Options

Trying to negotiate with your creditor.  It’s not a bad thing to do if you don’t have a lot of creditors, if you only have a few credit cards, and you don’t mind dealing with the hassle of going to court, being served, going through litigation, doing discovery.  If a pro se defendant – pro sedebtor (excuse me) wants to do this, they certainly can.  However, keep in mind this that the creditor has all the power in the world against you in this situation.  Creditors do not have to negotiate.  More often than not, they will negotiate.  They understand people are on hard times now.  But creditors see the bottom line, and the bottom line is this, is that they can negotiate up to a certain amount, and at that point, they can no longer negotiate.  

For an example, say you have a $5,000.00 Visa credit card.  That $5,000.00, you wish to negotiate with the creditor and bring it down to half of it ($2,500.00).  You call the creditor; you say that you want to pay $2,500.00 to get rid of your debt.  The creditor, more often than not, will say – try to bump it up and say, “Well, can you do, you know, 75 percent?  We can put you on a payment plan, and we won’t pursue you in court.”  However, most of the time, the payment plan is not reasonable for the debtor.  Most of the time, creditors want that money lump sum, lump sum meaning, “I want [me, the credit wants] that $2,500.00 in full in one check, no payment plan,” the reasoning being that they are thinking that they’re going to give you 50 percent off on your $5,000.00 debt and that in doing so, cutting you a break, they want that money right away.   

They don’t want to get half of the debt in three to four years.  No, that’s not what they want.  That’s why I’m saying that negotiating with creditors is an issue because they have all the power in the world.  They do not have to negotiate with you.  All they have to do is bring you to court, sue you for the total amount, and then start garnishing your wages, start freezing your bank accounts, start putting liens on the debtor’s home and businesses, and things of that nature.  So negotiating with a creditor is okay if you have – if you think you can do it.  However, I would be timid because they do have a lot of power.