Category: Georgia | Chapter 7 - page 16

Loansharking is an illegal practice where unlicensed lenders extend credit to borrowers at impossibly high interest rates and then use threats and actual violence to collect. A slightly more respectable version of this practice is commonly called a payday loan. These are small consumer loans for short terms at exorbitant interest rates. Payday loans are…

If you are behind in your bills, you’ve probably gotten letters from you creditors as well as phone calls threatening to take action to collect on your debts. As if the harassing phone calls aren’t enough, your various creditors could also: Shut off your utilities Foreclose on your home or evict you from your apartment…

If you’ve fallen behind on credit card or loan payments, you may be curious about the direct mail advertisements you’ve been getting from companies calling themselves “debt resolution services.” They promise to help you settle your debt for significantly less than you owe. It sounds great until you find out you have to pay them…

It’s a moment that can be terrifying: you collect your mail and see a certified letter from a law firm. You open it and learn you’re being sued for the money you owe on your credit card. Now what? You’ve never been sued before. You can’t even remember going into a courthouse. Can you handle…

Most people get a good feeling when they know they’ll be receiving a fat refund on their taxes. But is that really the best financial strategy? If you’re paying off credit cards or a high-interest loan, the answer is probably no. Imagine your tax refund is $3,200, which is about the average amount a U.S….

The Big Short, the Oscar-nominated film about the 2008 housing crisis, is an instructive, sometimes funny, and intense human drama about fraud and greed in the financial world. The film exposes the corruption that led to the near collapse of our banking system, but offers little comfort to the millions of Americans who lost their…

Donald Trump, the New York billionaire, real estate mogul and television celebrity, has been making headlines for months as a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. That has prompted his many challengers to insinuate that his business record is not what it appears to be. Opponent Carly Fiorina, a former CEO whose business record…

Every state has different rules when it comes to bankruptcy. States have their own laws about which property can be kept (exempted) in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding. While many states allow you to choose between state and federal rules, Georgia limits its residents to state rules. Georgia’s bankruptcy exemptions apply to property or equity…

While bankruptcy filings have dropped throughout the country in 2015 so far, they remain high in Georgia. In fact, according to The Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, Georgia had the fourth most filings per capita in the first six months of 2015. Across the United States, total bankruptcies in June were down about 6%…

The rules and regulations contained in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) place strict limits on the individuals that debt collectors are allowed to contact about any debt you owe. In most situations, collectors and collection agencies are only allowed to communicate with you or your attorney. Collectors are even prohibited from leaving messages…