Posted by Anonymous on November 03, 2000 at 13:13:37:
In Reply to: Re: Re: I'm broke and selling my Tubas PT6 PT16 posted by Dale Phelps on November 03, 2000 at 11:04:37:
Dale, with great respect for all that you have said, and recognition of the abuses of the bankruptcy system, let me tell you my story. I hope all will forgive (a) the non-tuba-relatedness of the post, and (b) my desire to remain anonymous when I've spent 9 years trying to rebuild my reputation. The events in this post will probably sound impossibly weird, but I assure you every word is absolutely true.
A little over 10 years ago, I was recovering from a couple of months laid off and out of work, in my 'new' job (I'd been there about 5 months). It was payday. My wife was in the hospital, recovering from some emergency surgery and doing well. She was to come home that day. The kids would be back from a week with their grandparents' that night. Life was sweet.
Just around lunch-time, I got a call from the bank. The paycheck I had deposited two weeks earlier had bounced. They would begin bouncing MY checks if I didn't have funds to cover them by 3:00. We had scarcely rebuilt ANY savings, certainly not two weeks pay. I was getting up to go talk to our financial person, when she came into the room and summoned everyone into a conference room. There, we were told that the company would not be making payroll today, and we were all laid off effective immediately. The company (owned by an Austrian with no American assets) was broke. Thus, no paycheck that day either.
I left work knowing I couldn't even write the $100 co-pay for my wife's hospital stay (thank goodness we had good insurance, I thought), so I went to the hospital business office not knowing how they would respond. What I found out when I got there was that I had NO insurance. The company had been taking out $400 of my pay per month for my family's insurance, but had started pocketing it instead of sending it to the insurance company.
So, in the space of about two hours I went from everything great to financial ruin. I was a whole month behind in everything before I knew I was out of work, plus all the fees for bounced checks. I was unemployed. I owed the hospital a half year's pay.
I got another job a month later and started trying to rebuild. We were making small token payments to the hospital and the doctors, and BARELY paying the house payment. Several months later, my wife had to have another surgery. It was unrelated to any earlier problems, but someone at the doctor's office checked the wrong box, indicating it was a pre-existing condition for insurance purposes. As a result, the insurance company refused to pay for this surgery, despite appeals to the state board of insurance. They had a document that said it was pre-existing, and they were hanging on for dear life. We never got a dime. Now, we're in debt almost a FULL year's pay, even though both of these surgeries should have been covered by our insurance.
Four months later, I was laid off again (the last time, thank goodness). I was out of work four months, and when I finally found a job it was at a salary so low I couldn't even make my house payments. The other problems had me about three months behind in my house payment, the hospitals and doctors (surgeons, x-ray, anesthesiologists, etc.) were calling day and night, and deserved their money, but what could I do? Rob a bank?
My father finally persuaded me to give up our house and the car we owed money on (both were worth less than we owed, so we couldn't sell them) and file for bankruptcy. I could have kept those items if I could have made payments, but I couldn't do so. It was hard to give up, and I assure you it is NOT the easy way out. If you do ever file for bankruptcy, expect to pay twice as much (no exaggeration) for everything you do for many years. Rent, insurance, car loans (when you can finally get one again), utility deposits, all cost much, much more if you have a bankruptcy on your record, when you probably are least able to pay the extra. I still cannot even GET insurance through many companies who automatically exclude anyone with a bankruptcy on their record. Nine years after filing bankruptcy, I still work for that last company, the one who hired me for cheap (but at least they hired me!), and my salary is now almost twice what it ever was before the series of layoffs began. We own a lovely home (at a painful interest rate), bought a car a couple of years ago (at a very favorable interest rate), and life is good again.
My bottom line: I agree with Dale about doing ANYTHING to avoid bankruptcy. If $10,000 is the difference, find another way. Deliver pizzas, try to negotiate interest-free repayment, move in with mom and dad for a year (or one of your kids), or yes, sell the horns. Do NOT get advice on whether to file bankruptcy FROM an attorney who would represent you in bankruptcy court. He has a conflict of interest. Again, do ANYTHING to avoid bankruptcy. But IF your situation is truly hopeless, if there is just simply NO other way, and particularly if it is due to situations beyond your control, don't let it rob your self-respect. Try to get back on your feet, then make penence to the world, if not to your original creditors, by being generous with what you have. You will feel like your life is over, but (ten years later) you will smile again.