For those Americans who have come upon hard times, the choice to end their problems is almost always bankruptcy. Individuals who earn about the median for their area and can’t repay their debts can file Chapter 7. Assuming there is no lying or subterfuge in the application, one’s debts can be adjudicated and the taxpayer gets a clean slate. (Clean in that they owe no money- but they no longer have access to credit cards [for a few years, at least] and their credit history will reflect the bankruptcy.) Of course, one’s assets (over a certain value) are used to satisfy [that’s a legal term, you can bet the credits are NOT satisfied not receiving all that they owe) the creditors’ demands.

If the taxpayer is among the upper echelon of income earners or has sufficient assets and income to pay back at least some of their debts, then a Chapter 13 filing is in order. This involves a payback plan,  which often allows one to keep some credit cards, but does provide a method to reset the debt to an affordable level.

(As an aside, if one owes more than about $ 10K to credit card companies, then a repayment plan can be arranged. This usually does mean that the credit vehicles are closed, but a livable payment plan can be developed. That’s worth something- especially, since no bankruptcy needs to be filed- which clearly hurts one’s credit ratings.  This process does ding one’s credit history, but nowhere as badly as would a bankruptcy.)

Except a new wrinkle in Chapter 7 filings may be in the offing. Unless the courts squash these two creeps like a bug. Gary Rosen and Roger Schlossberg are Greenbelt Maryland (one of two courts in the District of Maryland- the other Maryland court is in Baltimore) bankruptcy trustees. (These two fellows are appointed by the Bankruptcy Court to make sure that those filing bankruptcy are following the rules- even if these guys aren’t.)

What are Rosen and Schlossberg doing? These two Maryland attorneys are demanding those filing for bankruptcy provide their log-in and password information for eBay, Amazon Prime, and PayPal accounts. Moreover, they demand that no changes be made to these accounts for at least ten (10) days. And, of course, they provide no logic or reasoning for such an outrageous demand.

(Yes, we know that there may be assets in these programs- but it’s just as easy to demand statements for these accounts, without letting anyone else access them.)

We need the Justice Department to squash these guys like the bugs that they are.

But, until someone knocks some sense into these folks, anyone considering filing bankruptcy should close the accounts before filing bankruptcy. (Especially since SO MANY folks [stupidly] use the same password for multiple accounts. So, the trustees will have access to a slew of the taxpayer’s data.)

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