Just filed bankruptcy...

Hula

Just to put it mildly, I was threatened, harassed, belittled, criticized and condemned by collectors for 6 years. They called my family members, neighbors, you name it. They obtained information about me by lying and saying they were from the utility company or wherever.
After filing for bk, and the collectors again started their tactics. I had left many jobs all of them were deadend jobs due to the collectors. But at my current job, I was not willing to do this.

I finally stumbled across this website thanks to a search engine.
I contacted Johnny soon after. It was one of the best decisions in my life. He told me that he could take care of the calls and the threats. I was a little bit hesitant. Yeah who the hell is going to want to help me. Right. I was not a trusting person at that point in my life, but really what did I have to lose.

Johnny would now take care of the calls. Anytime a collector would call me, I would give them his name and number.

Soon after, I was not getting any calls at home or the office. I was impressed. I was no longer scared to answer the phone at the office. In the past anytime someone had called and asked for me by my name, I said she was not working here anymore. But this caused problems at the office with people that I was dealing with.

I can honestly say that Johnny has been my rock. He has been so kind and supportive to me. Not only with the collectors, but he has been a wealth of information to me. There were times when he would call me and ask how are you. That was the personal touch that he offered.
When he says that he will take care of everything, you can believe it.
I think that last time that I got a call from the collectors was way back in 2004. I only know that when Johnny was on the case, all the calls stopped.

If anyone out there is being harassed, you don't have to live like this. I lived like this for 6 years. I was a basketcase. I made my boyfriend's life hell too. Whenever I would get calls, I would take out my stress and frustration on him and the dog. I knew things were pretty bad when ever the dog would not greet me when I came home. Now that is bad.

I would recommend Johnny a million times over.

Sounds like it was a living hell!!!! I'm glad that Johnny helped you. I may be asking for his help soon too. I'm getting nervous. Do mean that the collection agencies were coming after you even after you were discharged from bankruptcy?

I had some more questions on what BigFatherA wrote March 26:

"With banko and student loans, once the CIBC gets your papers from the trustee, you have automatically defaulted on your student loans.  The interest relief is irrelevent because you are under bankruptcy protection.  Hence nobody can chase you for payment while you are bankrupt.  As a SL defaulter you're correct: you no longer qualify for IR.

What the bank did is return the guaranteed portions of your OSL and CSL to their respective governments for payment.  Since your OSL was less than the guarantee amount the entire amount returned to the Ontario government and CIBC has washed it's hands of it.

After your release from bankruptcy:
You now have 3 student loans
    An OSL with the provincial government
    A CSL with the feds (HDRC)
    A CSL with the CIBC (bank risk portion)

Each one will be paid a portion of your settlement when your bankruptcy trustee is discharged, and will be on your final statement.  You may find that the government sectors won't come looking for you until after the trustee discharge (could be up to a year after your discharge)."

Hi BigFatherA,

It seems to be unfolding just like you described. I've received one letter from CIBC National Collections (Toronto) and another from Social Development Canada/Human Resources Development Canada Collection Services (Hull, Quebec), but I haven't received anything from Ontario Government.

What exactly does "guaranteed portion" mean? Why is that important?
The letter from SDC/HRDC Collection Services said that "As of May 11, 2004, students who enter into a bankruptcy arrangement may be eligible for Interest Relief or other debt management benefits on their Canada Student Loans." Is this a lie?

When and how should I start paying my 3 loans? Will it be difficult to negotiate payments with them? My discharge will be August 2005. Recently, I started working again, so my income is up and running.

Any other feedback?
Thanks.

To your first question the "guaranteed portion" is the part of your SL that the government now owns (the paid the bank).  A loan can be broken into two parts the government half (guaranteed protion) and the bank half (the risk portion).  Not much of a risk though as its still a student loan under the student loan act.  A small enough loan like an OSL could be all guaranteed portion.

How you go about repayments depends on your negotiation skills.  You would need to contact your bank student loan center about repaying your risk portion.  Your Ontario SL is in the hands of the Ministry of
Education and training - Colleges and Universiies, and HRDC/SDC (whatever they call themselves now) has the guaranteed portion of your CSL.  Contact info should be on this website.  If you are afraid of your ability to either negotiate or dictate terms, you could hire Johnny to do it fo you.

As to IR, unless they changed the rules you aren't eligible as your loans ARE returned as defaulted.
Maybe someone has newer info than I on that point. . .

Hey BFA,
Thank you for the explanations. As far as negotiations skills go, I'm still not too sure how I'll do. It depends on how reasonable they are! ;-)

I've also just recently looked through the "Dealing with Collection Agencies" section and the CFW site and there are a lot of interesting entries. I still don't have a clear answer on whether these 3 groups who have my lonas are going to be automatically deceitful and nasty if I approach them. Are there any fundamentals with negotiating my payments you (or anyone) can suggest?

A person that works for my trustee confirmed that I'm eligible for interest relief on my federal loan only, so I'll call and see.

masy,
Those credit counselling people were misleading! I guess I originally put my faith in them because it seemed like it's very popular for people (even good friends of mine) to jump to the cc option if you're struggling financially. Although I know bankruptcy isn't the ideal solution, I think it has worked out for me. I'm still not too clear on what else I could have done under my circumstances.

My trustee said that the bankruptcy fee has to be paid in the nine months, or you are in default.
I live in Saskatchewan, so it may be different elsewhere.