Bankruptcy for the 2nd time

fermi

aaroncaz wrote: »

Sorry to be dim, but how can you get into debt, so soon after going bankrupt?? though you couldnt get any credit for 6 years??

Read through bloomsberg78's previous thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=505548

consultant31

malestrom07 wrote: »

I agree, no judgments, I deal with clients who go br for many reasons the first time never mind the second time. Many have resorted to suicide rather than bankruptcy. I don't see many Creditors dropping dead through bad debt.

Actually, we had a chap do some work on our house, who committed suicide when a company he did a lot of work for went bankrupt owing him thousands of pounds. He, in turn, couldn't pay his bills and couldn't live with it.

The person who became BR owing him the money, went on to start another business in his wife's name and did exactly the same thing again a few years down the line.

I know this is perhaps an extreme case, but it does go to show that one person going BR is rarely the end of the chain, others will suffer because of it........perhaps this is the sort of thing rog2 was thinking of

rog2

Broken_hearted wrote: »

I know it's wrong to judge ROG but it does make those of us paying back our debts:mad:. She needs to get some help to find out the underlying problems before going bR again.

The MAJORITY of posters, on this board, have CONSISTENTLY criticised the 'professional' bankrupt. By that I mean the person that either goes all out to 'rip off' the financial institutions by running up huge debts with absolutely no intention of ever paying them back and then choosing 'bankruptcy' as an easy option in order to put two fingers up to their creditors. Equally the same justifiable criticism has been made of those who hide behind a small limited company that will take deposits from unsuspecting customers, yet not deliver the goods, but declare bankruptcy after having carefully salted away all liquid assetts, only to start again, under a different name, offering the same products, often from the same building.
Now, I can't think of anyone who posts on this forum as falling into either of those categories, although we have, from time to time, had the odd poster who has 'boasted' about the ease of bankruptcy - needless to say those people don't stay around for very long.
For most of us, bankruptcy has either been forced on us, usually by circumstances over which we have had little or no control or influence. For many it has been the result of unhearing financial institutions who have been happy to make vast profits out of customers, yet are unprepared to stand by them when they encounter difficulties - irrespective of whether those difficulties could have been solved by greater flexibility on the part of creditors.
It is, to me at least, obvious that bloomsberg's wife is just as much the victim as the cause - a Financial Institution (LTSB) driven by greed has siezed on a potential debtor who, due to her previous bankruptcy, was a vulnerable, but easy target. LTSB would have known of her previous bankruptcy, yet they continued to increase the amount of credit available to her - it actually beggars belief, but anyone who has had a credit card will appreciate just how easy it is to increase your credit limit - either by a quick phone call, or, more often, the limit is automatically increased as the credit card holder approaches his/her spending limit. LTSB's approach has been, to say the least, irresponsible.
I also find it difficult to be over critical of bloomberg's wife for having kept the true extent of her debts from him - it is bad enough having to face bankruptcy once, but to have to face up to the apparent fact that she had not 'learnt her lesson' by incurring more 'unmanageable debt' so soon afterwards, must have been truly daunting.
I believe, therefore, that whilst the second bankruptcy will be the best solution in this case, it is a great pity that LTSB will walk away virtually unscathed from the whole affair. Please do not, anyone, ask me to feel any sympathy whatsoever for the fact that they will not receive any of the £5k debt that has been built up as a result of their own incompetence.
Bloomsberg, as well as his wife, now have to confront bankruptcy for a second time in less than three years. We all know how traumatic the experience can be, and just how much we have all relied on forums like this to help us through that experience.
Bloomsberg, and his wife, need our support, now, more than ever, and that level of support should not be influenced by posters who have not taken the time to check the facts before making judgemental assumptions.
Sorry to have gone on a bit, but you did ask.

rog2

Broken_hearted

Again true ROG even with most of our debts under a DMP we are still offered more credit all the time. Littlewoods alone are offering over £2,000 credit at the moment, very tempting coming up to christmas but I couldn't afford to pay it back. Since the car failed it's MOT on thursday the credit card keeps looking at me and it's very very hard to say no. December is going to be a hard month but I have to take responsibility for myself. If we run up anymore debt we will end up Bankrupt and that will be no-ones fault but mine. Not barclays and not Littlewoods.

JoeHel

Even I don't judge someone who has had to go bankrupt, despite receiving a solicitors letter today that we will likely never see a penny of the £21k compensation my OH was awarded through an accident at work. The defendant has now gone bankrupt and will escape all liability for my OH's broken legs and 3 years lost earnings. We now must try and clear the debts we have run up ourselves coping without his wage or any benefits. But I truly don't believe ANYONE would choose to go bankrupt if there was an alternative.

fermi

JoeHel wrote: »

Even I don't judge someone who has had to go bankrupt, despite receiving a solicitors letter today that we will likely never see a penny of the £21k compensation my OH was awarded through an accident at work. The defendant has now gone bankrupt and will escape all liability for my OH's broken legs and 3 years lost earnings.

How come. Has he wiggled out of the 'personal' part of the liability?

Toto

BH I understand and I totally empathise with what you are saying. But the OPs wife doesn't have your strength around money and credit. Some people just don't get how to deal with money, in the same way that others can't do algebra or grasp languages. In this case I really do believe LTSB are to blame. I'm often wary of completely blaming the creditor, it's a 2 way journey into debt. But lets be honest how can the bank complain that they are losing their money when they hand it to someone who clearly can't cope with it.

If I were the judge I wouldn't grant a second bankruptcy. I'd write to LTSB and tell them to accept £1 a month for the next 5000 months and in future to stop being so bloody irresponsible.

wherediditallgo

kitchen_buff wrote: »

Very Very irresposible, I think someone needs a slap

Yes, but I think you'll find self-flagellation takes time to become good at, though you might feel it's worth putting in the effort.

Bloomsberg & his wife know that she shouldn't be in a situation where she's facing going BR a second time, especially so soon after the first time, but no-one on this forum deliberately puts themselves in that position. She clearly has other personal issues that she's dealing with by spending money that she then has difficulty paying back. Yes, she shouldn't have agreed to the credit, but she's been aided & abetted by financial institutions who offer credit in seconds, go deaf & dumb the minute you have difficulty making your payments & need a bit of understanding from them, & then want to shower you with credit again as soon as you're discharged. From reading Bloomsberg's other thread on this, it seems she felt pressurised into taking the credit & it was done so quickly & impersonally that she didn't even realise it had gone through. What sort of way is that to run a business? I got my ED just over a month ago, & I've already had two letters offering credit, one saying I've been pre-approved for a credit card. I rang up to ask them how they'd managed to pre-approve someone who'd been BR, & was told "But you're discharged now". Oh, so that's alright then. :rolleyes: I've made that one call, but any more letters offering credit will be ripped up. However, not everyone is strong enough to do that (for whatever reason), & they shouldn't have to take all the blame when a financial institution with literally more money than sense makes such a ridiculous decision.

I've found LTSB one of the hardest organisations to deal with, not least of all because they are so big & so slow that departments seem to take months to get up-to-date on your current position, & you spend far too long trying to get things sorted out once you need some help from them. So if they've been stupid enough to give over £6,000 credit to someone who's been BR & discharged such a short time, & has no income except benefits, they deserve to lose every penny. If I had my way, they'd also have a hefty fine imposed as penalty. :mad:

Bloomsberg's wife has some problems that I hope they will both work towards resolving now they may have to deal with a second BR. They need our support & advice now, in whatever form we can give it. If you can't offer any to them or anyone else, I suggest you leave it to those who can & are willing to do so.

bloomsberg78

Thanks you all so much for taking the time to respond. There are so many spot on comments which basically sum up my thoughts on the issue.

I have to admit i personally come from a fortunate background of never getting into debt and always managing to a budget apart from my student days, but back then the banks would never give you enough unsecured money to hang yourself with. As soon as I started working I became financially aware, paid off my credit card and have never been in debt since. So been in a relationship with someone who has limited financial awareness has been a huge learning curb for me. I don't want to come across as boastful myself, but managing money/finance seems to come naturally to me(part of it is probably a bit of luck as well), but what I am learning (as toto says) some people are good at some things and not at others. My wife simply has no head for money. She does not see how quickly a few spends of £20 adds up, she's naive and too trusting of financial institutions and never reads the small print and it's something that I think is going to take along time to sort out. But I am absolutely sure that with my help, she will.

To see the financial institutions from the other side of the fence has been a huge experience for me. The way they lure vunerable people in and then spit them out is shocking. There is absolutely no regards for people's circumstances or feelings. There was no way my wife was ever going to pay off anything over £1000 and a quick 30second check of incomes/outgoings told me that - but that doesn't seem to matter to them as they can bundle it up and sell it to a hedge fund.

If we have to talk about blame (or responsibility!), i'm sure it's not clear cut and blame makes absolutely no difference to anything, but here's my thoughts:
myself - for not keeping closer to her finance after her last BR, I did draw her up a budget and I assumed a) no one would give her a CC and b) she had learnt her lesson.
My wife: For not asking for my help
Her Family: for putting her into the mess in the first place
LTSB: none of the above could have happened without the help of LTSB. She went to them as a BR with a basic bank-account. In weeks of her discharge they "upgraded" her to a fee based current account, signed her up to CC (she said she didn't realise she was signing for a CC(£3000 limit!), she thought it was a debit card), and gave her an overdraft and some month's later a loan.

The rest is history........

I have the upmost respect for everyone out there who is struggling and doing everything possible to pay back their debts, but given what I have seen of Lloyds I do not have a single bone of sympathy for LTSB, given what I have seen.

She now has a budget and just a cash account with another back. She draws out in cash what she needs for the month and gives her card to me and will continue to do so until she feels more confident.

dippydora_2

malestrom07 wrote: »

I agree, no judgments, I deal with clients who go br for many reasons the first time never mind the second time. Many have resorted to suicide rather than bankruptcy. I don't see many Creditors dropping dead through bad debt.

As a creditor myself, I think this is an extremely unfair thing to say, this whole topic if discussion is extremely disturbing for me because of the situation I find myself in, where someone owes me personally a lot of money and no-one has any advice about how to get it back and there is sooo much advice on how to get out of paying debts etc.

My family have moved to Scotland for 18 months and are renting a property here, meanwhile we have a house down south that we have had no choice but to rent out as we cannot afford to pay rent and mortgage, I am now one year on and the tenant has consistantly not paid or is late and now owes me over £4000 (6 months rent) plus solicitors fees of nearly £1000 (and I have had to take her to court to try and claim money back and evict her, meanwhile, she is just not paying even though she has a county court judgement against her telling her to pay me £50 per week. My life savings have disappeared and I now have 2 overdrafts through no fault of my own.
I do not seem to have any more options whereas this woman is going to be re-housed by the council as she has just told the court that her husband has left her and I will probably lose my own home when I have to pay to evict her (I suspect that this is what she wanted all along).

I have no idea where to go from here it is so unfair, I have no more money for more legal fees and feel that creditors are being treated as the bad guys wherever I look, I am just as much a victim in this.
I know the board says "No Judgement" but malestrom07 is making judgements about creditors!
Perhaps someone could offer me advice too.......