Consent Withdrawn
23rd June 2009, 16:27
OBJECTIVE:
The objective is to avoid being completely robbed by the arbitrary, obscene and oppressive interest rates that credit card companies charge while still paying the principle thus keeping your moral high ground while doing severe damage to the credit card companies, the financial institutions and the entire debt disempowerment machine that is keeping so many of us in a perpetual prison of dept. This system puts you in the driver's seat of both the method and timing of the debt repayment. It empowers you by keeping your creditors with their harassment tactics away from you.
Before presenting the plan I do want to explain a few of the drawbacks and possible disqualifiers. Perhaps these problems will be the impetus to developing solutions or tailoring the plan to fit each person's need.
1. Real property ownership will make this plan very difficult if not impossible to work successfully. If you own your home or any real property, it is registered with the county where the property is located and that is one of the first things the credit card companies or collection agencies will look for if you default. They will almost certainly get a court order to put a lien on your property. One way to avoid this is to have the property put in another person's name. But obviously this must be a person you trust and I would advise caution. Of course if you prefer not to put the property in someone else's name and you have no intention of selling the house, a lien is pretty useless as least in the short run because your creditor will only get their settlement if you sell the house. Incidentally, if there is already a lien on your property it is probably too late to change ownership.
2. Being married will also make this plan difficult to implement because the marriage contract allows for the creditors to attempt to obtain payment from your spouse. In addition to the havoc this can cause in the relationship with your spouse, it will also more than likely break down the your resolve and you will probably capitulate to the creditors demands or else your spouse will. Either way, the creditors win and you may be looking at divorce papers.
3. Find out what the wage garnishment laws are in your state. There are several states (including the one I live in) that do not allow wage garnishment for credit card debt. If your state does allow for it you may have to make modifications if it comes to that point. I have several suggestions I can share.
THE PLAN:
So if you are not a real property owner and either not married or have a fellow comrade as a spouse who is sympathetic to this cause, here is the plan on how to avoid the obscene and arbitrary high interest payments on credit cards while bringing these leeches to their knees at the same time:
1. Get a post office box or use a third party as an address for all credit card correspondence. This way the address they have on file is not the address where you actually reside. This keeps your home a safe place of sanctuary from all harassing correspondence from credit card companies, etc. It is also good because if the credit card companies attempt to sue you, the agent that serves you will be unable to since you don't live there. It is also advisable to use this same address for your bank and any other correspondence in which the sender has your social security number as it is prudent to believe that these entities all share information. Obviously this would include any government correspondence and your driver's license and registration and auto insurance should be addressed to your faux address. Finally, it is advisable that you also use this address at your place of employment. Basically the only mail you want to receive at your real address is from family, friends, etc. All "official" mail should go to your faux address as a precaution. A great side benefit to this is you will receive very little junk mail if any at your actual home, your sanctuary, your safe haven.
2. Now for your rental lease for your apartment and all the utilities that are connected with your apartment, I recommend that you either have all of these put in the name of a trusted third party. Perhaps a sibling or good friend or your significant other. The important thing is that there must be mutual trust and understanding between these parties in order for this plan to work effectively. It is also crucial that you get the telephone and cell phone plans in the name of a third party so that your creditors cannot reach you by phone.
3. After all this is done there is unfortunately one place where your creditors and the court server can reach you and I must admit I have not figured out a way to sidestep this one: It is your place of employment. Even if you followed the plan and your employer has your faux address on file, that will not stop your creditors from harassing you at work or even sending the sheriff to serve you at work. But, this is far better than non stop phone calls at home and endless collection notices in the mail. Besides, after a few times being told that personal calls cannot be accepted at work, the calls will usually subside a bit.
This plan is fluid and can be tweaked and modified to fit each users unique and individual need, but for me it has worked perfectly. I have stopped harassing phone calls and mail. And since I own no real property threats of judgements don't bother me in the least. In fact I was served papers at work and when the sheriff asked for my real address, (I only have a PO box listed) I jokingly told him I live in my car. Let the credit card companies waste money trying to sue me, they will never get a cent more from me than I am willing to pay. Talk about empowerment and none of this cost me a dime. Why pay one capitalist to help you get out of paying another. Just do it yourself as I have done.
The objective is to avoid being completely robbed by the arbitrary, obscene and oppressive interest rates that credit card companies charge while still paying the principle thus keeping your moral high ground while doing severe damage to the credit card companies, the financial institutions and the entire debt disempowerment machine that is keeping so many of us in a perpetual prison of dept. This system puts you in the driver's seat of both the method and timing of the debt repayment. It empowers you by keeping your creditors with their harassment tactics away from you.
Before presenting the plan I do want to explain a few of the drawbacks and possible disqualifiers. Perhaps these problems will be the impetus to developing solutions or tailoring the plan to fit each person's need.
1. Real property ownership will make this plan very difficult if not impossible to work successfully. If you own your home or any real property, it is registered with the county where the property is located and that is one of the first things the credit card companies or collection agencies will look for if you default. They will almost certainly get a court order to put a lien on your property. One way to avoid this is to have the property put in another person's name. But obviously this must be a person you trust and I would advise caution. Of course if you prefer not to put the property in someone else's name and you have no intention of selling the house, a lien is pretty useless as least in the short run because your creditor will only get their settlement if you sell the house. Incidentally, if there is already a lien on your property it is probably too late to change ownership.
2. Being married will also make this plan difficult to implement because the marriage contract allows for the creditors to attempt to obtain payment from your spouse. In addition to the havoc this can cause in the relationship with your spouse, it will also more than likely break down the your resolve and you will probably capitulate to the creditors demands or else your spouse will. Either way, the creditors win and you may be looking at divorce papers.
3. Find out what the wage garnishment laws are in your state. There are several states (including the one I live in) that do not allow wage garnishment for credit card debt. If your state does allow for it you may have to make modifications if it comes to that point. I have several suggestions I can share.
THE PLAN:
So if you are not a real property owner and either not married or have a fellow comrade as a spouse who is sympathetic to this cause, here is the plan on how to avoid the obscene and arbitrary high interest payments on credit cards while bringing these leeches to their knees at the same time:
1. Get a post office box or use a third party as an address for all credit card correspondence. This way the address they have on file is not the address where you actually reside. This keeps your home a safe place of sanctuary from all harassing correspondence from credit card companies, etc. It is also good because if the credit card companies attempt to sue you, the agent that serves you will be unable to since you don't live there. It is also advisable to use this same address for your bank and any other correspondence in which the sender has your social security number as it is prudent to believe that these entities all share information. Obviously this would include any government correspondence and your driver's license and registration and auto insurance should be addressed to your faux address. Finally, it is advisable that you also use this address at your place of employment. Basically the only mail you want to receive at your real address is from family, friends, etc. All "official" mail should go to your faux address as a precaution. A great side benefit to this is you will receive very little junk mail if any at your actual home, your sanctuary, your safe haven.
2. Now for your rental lease for your apartment and all the utilities that are connected with your apartment, I recommend that you either have all of these put in the name of a trusted third party. Perhaps a sibling or good friend or your significant other. The important thing is that there must be mutual trust and understanding between these parties in order for this plan to work effectively. It is also crucial that you get the telephone and cell phone plans in the name of a third party so that your creditors cannot reach you by phone.
3. After all this is done there is unfortunately one place where your creditors and the court server can reach you and I must admit I have not figured out a way to sidestep this one: It is your place of employment. Even if you followed the plan and your employer has your faux address on file, that will not stop your creditors from harassing you at work or even sending the sheriff to serve you at work. But, this is far better than non stop phone calls at home and endless collection notices in the mail. Besides, after a few times being told that personal calls cannot be accepted at work, the calls will usually subside a bit.
This plan is fluid and can be tweaked and modified to fit each users unique and individual need, but for me it has worked perfectly. I have stopped harassing phone calls and mail. And since I own no real property threats of judgements don't bother me in the least. In fact I was served papers at work and when the sheriff asked for my real address, (I only have a PO box listed) I jokingly told him I live in my car. Let the credit card companies waste money trying to sue me, they will never get a cent more from me than I am willing to pay. Talk about empowerment and none of this cost me a dime. Why pay one capitalist to help you get out of paying another. Just do it yourself as I have done.