Don't Allow Collectors Access to Your Money

Townhall.com ^ | December 26, 2012 | Dave Ramsey

[CSM]

Yes, go to www.daveramsey.com and on the right hand side of his web page you will see a section called ELP’s, it stands for Endorced Local Providers. It is a screened database of different financial service providers that are in your specific area. I can tell you that Dave and his team are VERY stringent on those service providers.

OK, just under that section you will see a link to find a “financial counselor” that is actually trained by Dave’s team to help folks with debt and debt collectors. Contact the one that pops up closest to you....

I agree with you, I think that what BofA did is illegal as well. It could very well get the entire debt cancelled or forgiven...

[discostu]

If you do pay off the card make sure you do it out of his account or an estate account NEVER yours. If you do it out of yours all of his creditors can claim you’ve taken responsibility for his bills.

On the other hand unless he actually said in his will to pay off his debts ignore them.

[Hoffer Rand]

Under the law, Power of Attorney ends when a person dies. Your POA terminated when your dad passed. Nobody should have accepted that as legal reason to do business with you on your dad's behalf. You would need something that gives you postmortem status. Unless you're the executor of the estate, BofA can't hold you legally responsible for your dad's bills. Even then, they can only hold the assets of the estate against any outstanding debts the estate has, not you personally. They can't just attach your name to your dad's CC. That's not legal.

[A_perfect_lady]

To add to what usconserative said, don’t ever pay a single cent on your dad’s Visa. If you do, they can make a legal case that by doing it you assumed responsibility for the whole debt. Then you really are screwed.

[Still Thinking]

On the other hand unless he actually said in his will to pay off his debts ignore them.

I thought that creditors by law got first crack at the estate before heirs did. Is that not the case?

[discostu]

Depends on the laws of your state. Also depends on the size of everything. All the estates I’ve helped cleanup were small enough to get parted out before the creditors even got to find out. With everything closed they got death certificates and no cash. Of course nobody was owed more than a couple grand so they just wrote it off. Qwest was the worst, they just could not wrap their heads around “she’s dead turn the phone off” then they spent years hassling me for the money for the months they wouldn’t turn it off. Kept telling them if they’d turned the phone off the first time I told them to and sent a certificate nobody would owe them anything.

[WashingtonSource]

It was not B of A that gave unsecured mortgages to illegal aliens. It was Countrywide, run by Angelo Mozilo. B of A bought Countrywide and with it, all the problems from the fraud and abuses that Mozilo did while raking off a billion dollars into his own accounts and leaving the company in dire straits.

B of A was one of the few large banks that did NOT do subprime lending. They got out the business ahead of the housing bubble. They goofed, however, in buying Countrywide. They are still paying for that mistake.