I used my credit cards to pay living expenses while unemployed and recovering from illness. Most of this happened from early 2000 to April, 2001. Most of my living expenses during that time were paid for by credit cards. Now, I am forced to file bankruptcy. I cannot keep up any longer with all the bills. I have a detailed post that I wrote earlier about my situation. I have now heard that if you use credit cards to pay living expenses, it may be considered fraud, and therefore not dischargable in bankruptcy. Does anyone have any details about this? If this is true, does the fact that I have made payments for 1 1/2 years since running up the bills have any effect (like a good faith effort to pay them off)? Has anyone actually dealt with this in bankruptcy court?
When we do petitions, we always say "miscellaneous purchases on credit" and have never had a problem. I have never heard of that and can't imagine why they wouldn't be dischargeable if you used them for living expenses. The problem would come in if you intentionally ran up credit cards and then filed for bankruptcy...like if you had just gotten the cards, ran them up and then filed. L
I don't know why it would be. A charge is a charge. I bet alot of people do it. You can't be the only one out there! Charlie
slimeball, Since you were also suffering from illness during much of that time I don't think that you should encounter much trouble after you file. But you definitely want to go through this with an atty and not try and handle it pro se. I think a lot of the "feeling depressed" will go away when you file and the creditors stop stalking you. Have you told your wife everything? If she finds out that you haven't and you mess up her credit you can expect even more problems. Don't expect it to be easy to remove the joint "Included In Bankruptcy" accounts from her reports. You know what really scares me. It's when you say that you will just use her credit when to you have to buy a car or "other stuff" in the future.
Before you file for bankruptcy, make sure you're at the point where you no longer need to use your credit cards for living expenses. If you continue to try to run up more debt after you file for bankruptcy, you could jeopardize the outcome of the proceeding. -ingenue
The BK law says that any charges of over $1000 per card for luxury expenses within 60 days of filing are presumed non-dischargeable (although they can still be argued, and someone has to object to their discharge). Also, any line of credit cash withdrawals totalling over $1000 in the same timeframe are treated the same. Otherwise (with a number of rare technical exceptions which don't apply to you or you almost assuredly would have mentioned them already), everything else is presumed dischargeable. In general, they would not be dischargeable only if the CCCs could prove that you deliberately ran up the debt with the full intention of declaring BK to avoid ever having to pay them. This is close to impossible to prove, and the CCCs only attempt this objection in the most egregious cases, where there's a lot of money involved, which is not the case here. Heck, you can get out of GAMBLING debts incurred 90 days prior to filing. Your situation is completely and absolutely normal. Don't worry about it one more second. This board isn't really geared to this kind of BK question. The site that really helped me the most was the Bankruptcy Forum: http://chat-cards.com/wwwboard/bankruptcy/messages.html You could also check prarielaw.com, and the links from there to Cathy Moran's site.
This is not necessarily true. Trustees are getting more and more strict on this type of thing and simply because it has been past 60 days does not mean it will be dischargeable...particularly something like gambling debts. I don't think the OP has anything to worry about in his situation (although that should be discussed with an attorney...and he should *not* rely on those of us here who are posting with all good intentions but without a law degree). Charlie...I'm all done with the lawsuits for the moment, but I'm starting a paper trail in anticipation of possibly filing against the CRAs for not reporting complete information. TU in particular as they use $0 insteady of N/A in the field for the credit limit. Since my score is lower by 40-60 points on TU, and yet almost everything else is the same, I suspect that FICO ignores a N/A, but will calculate the $0. Thanks for asking L
