Fong Law Group

Can I Sue Someone Who Has Filed for Bankruptcy?

You can register a lawsuit if someone breaks a deal or harms you in a certain way, and you want money to compensate you for your loss. However, if the person you like to sue declares bankruptcy, you may be out of luck. The sort of problem and the time of the incident will determine whether you can file a lawsuit.

Suing Someone Who Claims Bankruptcy

The automatic stay imposed by bankruptcy prevents most lawsuits from being filed after the bankruptcy is lodged. Private loans, credit card bills, hospital expenses, utility bills, and accidental injury claims are all examples of loans for which you can't file a lawsuit.

There are some circumstances in which a lawsuit can survive. For example, declaring bankruptcy will not prevent a criminal case from proceeding. The lawsuit of bankruptcy has no bearing on divorce or custody hearings. If the user declaring bankruptcy was intoxicated at the time of accident or injury, the legal case against them can be continued. In addition, lawsuits arising from debts incurred after a bankruptcy filing may be pursued. You can file a case against the borrower if they cause accidents one month after declaring bankruptcy and harm the car.

The court's verdict on whether or not to grant the request is contingent on the facts. After the court announces an automatic stay, lenders can sometimes acquire a debt.

Even after a judge announces an automatic stay, the borrower may be required to pay the debt. The creditor, except for fraud cases, can get an exemption. The creditor must show that the automatic stay is detrimental to their legitimate dispute, legal agreements, or property. You can visit Fong Law Firm if you are residing near Monterey Park California and surrounding areas.

Cases When a Bankruptcy Filing Will Not Discharge

Can you collect money from someone in the following situations?

Fraud: If the debtor committed fraud and incurred debt, the debt cannot be dismissed by declaring bankruptcy.

Personal Injury Situations: If the borrower was driving under the influence and caused the accident, bankruptcy will not be able to discharge the mortgage. This sort of lawsuit can be filed in a bankruptcy trial to decide whether the offender was intoxicated.

Debt After Bankruptcy: This debt cannot be discharged if the borrower applied for a mortgage within 3 months of declaring bankruptcy and failed to repay it.

Bankruptcy and Suing Someone

A complaint will be lodged on you if the mortgage is non-dischargeable and the lender is permitted to sue. This is a printed document that explains why a lender or other party suing you must be allowed a bankruptcy proceeding exemption.

The document is delivered to the address listed on the bankruptcy complaint. A summons will be served on you, detailing how soon you must react to the concerns and whether you must attend court. The bankruptcy court judge can issue the state lawsuit to be transferred to federal court after it is filed.

The sort of case or how much the lawsuit has advanced will determine whether the court commands the case to be moved.

Call Fong Law Group at (626) 289-8299 for a FREE consolidation, and talk to an attorney today. We are here to help you get through this difficult time in your life, and help you with a Fresh Start.

Medicare provides tips to protect against fraud

Medicare recently announced several ways in which scammers are attempting to steal numbers or other personal information, using fraudulent offers related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Automated calls, text messages or emails appear to be the preferred method used for these scams. Some claim to offer free face masks, COVID-19 testing kits, cures or other protective equipment.

The catch, however, appears to be that people are asked to provide their Medicare numbers or other personal information in exchange for these supposed offers.

“If anyone reaches out to get your Medicare number or personal information in exchange for something, you can bet it’s a scam,” the agency said in an email PSA.

On its website, www.medicare.gov/fraud, Medicare offers the following tips and guidelines to protect against potential scams and fraud:

• Medicare will never contact you for your Medicare number or other personal information unless you’ve given them permission in advance.
• Medicare will never call you to sell you anything.
• You may get calls from people promising you things if you give them a Medicare number. Don’t do it.
• Medicare will never visit you at your home.
• Medicare can’t enroll you over the phone unless you called first.

Those who experience or suspect fraud related to Medicare can call 1-800-MEDICARE to report it.

Steal This House and Do It Legally

“Complaints about stolen homes have shot up from 44 in 2013 to 136 in 2018, according to the city Department of Records. The department is making changes to its security system in the aftermath of the Inquirer stories, but it declined to detail the upgrades, fearing it would tip off scammers.”

A few years after Brewrytown resident Gail Harrison died in 2011, her home became the object of a scam in Philadelphia. One man allegedly forged the deed to her house and sold it for a huge profit. Another man allegedly filed a fraudulent will to take the house, according to the article “How to steal a house: Take advantage of holes in the city’s and state’s security on property and death records” from Philly.com.

Prosecutors report that in 2016, William Johnson allegedly forged Harrison’s signature and that of a notary on the deed to Harrison’s home. He sold it to a developer for $89,000, who flipped it for $250,000. Johnson was arrested in February 2019, on charges of stealing Harrison’s home and six others.

In 2017, the Register of Wills accepted Donnie McLaurin as Harrison’s rightful heir, even though both her signature and that of a notary appeared to be fake. Johnson beat him to the house, so he didn’t get it.

These and other scammers have learned to work a system that depends on people being honest.  However, when determining the disposition of the property of someone who has died, that’s not enough to go by. Not only was Harrison’s signature on the deed and the will forged, but so are the notaries’ signatures.

The notary is the one person who is believed by any government agency to be authenticating a document’s legal validity. However, the people who work in various government agencies don’t authenticate the notaries. They should do so, as this example demonstrates.

City officials in Philadelphia say they check to see if documents are properly notarized and require a photo ID from anyone filing them. They also say they don’t have enough staff to check a notary’s status.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, like most states, does have an online search page to verify the status of a notary. The state also has records showing notaries’ signatures, which should be digitized so that workers can immediately see, if they match the ones on the documents.

Another reason this scam is easy: death certificates are not that difficult to come by in Pennsylvania. In the case of the forged will, the person presented a genuine death certificate to the Register of Wills. The state has admitted that it mails death certificates to people who say they are relatives of the deceased. That’s a hole that needs to be plugged.

Another way to protect the assets of loved ones, is to be sure that they have an estate plan in place. While this may not stop every scammer, having the estate assets distributed in a timely fashion, with legitimate heirs through an estate plan, will preclude a scammer taking advantage of a vulnerable person’s property, after they have passed.

Reference: Philly.com (Feb. 28, 2019) “How to steal a house: Take advantage of holes in the city’s and state’s security on property and death records”

Senior Scams Range from Promised Luxury Cars to Stolen Homes

“Police Detective Rosalee Reid told of one scammer who tried to entice her to give up her personal information, so he could attempt to drain her bank account by promising her she’d “won” $750,000 and a white Mercedes Benz.”

Too bad this particular scammer had no idea to whom he was speaking. The officer played along, asking when she could get the car, and telling the scammer it was snowing and she didn’t want to get that on her brand-new Mercedes. After too many questions, the scammer hung up on her, reports the New Haven Independent in an article “Senior Study Scam Avoidance 101.”

Unfortunately, not every senior is that savvy, when it comes to being scammed. According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost more than $900 million in 2017 – that’s $63 million dollars more than in 2016 — to fraud, and many of the victims are seniors, who are routinely targeted.

Some of the cases are debt collection fraud, where a phone caller says they are calling from the IRS or the U.S. Marshall Service, stating vehemently that the person they are calling owes money to the government. The threat of jail time is frightening to enough people, that they fall for it.

Seniors are advised over and over again: the IRS does not call to make threats, and it’s definitely not calling to demand payment in gift cards from a major retailer. However, the scammers speak with authority and are extremely convincing. As a result, many people fall into the traps.

What makes scammers more frightening, is when they use a small piece of the senior’s identity. They may read the home address and insist that they will come to their home to collect the debt. They could also mention a family member, one who has passed away lately, and claim that they know everything about the person.

Another scam is to call and say that a beloved grandchild is in prison or has been kidnapped and needs money fast to pay ransom or bail to get out of jail. If this occurs, immediately hang up and contact the person or someone who can verify their safety, to make sure they are okay.

If someone has been arrested, they have the right to make one phone call. Authorities are not likely to be calling a person’s grandparents for bail money.

Another major source of fraud comes from those who know the senior or befriends them, solely to get their money or even their home. There are tales of caregivers, who become more and more involved in a senior’s life, often pushing their family members away and isolating the individual, so they can’t ask for help. Be wary of new people who are pushy about being helpful, especially if they ask to use your credit card or debit card to run errands for you.

Sadly, there are also many instances of family members who are charged and convicted for financial elder abuse, using their relationship with aging parents or other relatives to gain access to their finances. Be wary, warn experts, even when it is a family member. Read your credit card bills and bank statements carefully, to make sure that your money isn’t disappearing. Keep personal finance information secure.

Reference: New Haven Independent (Feb. 5, 2019) “Senior Study Scam Avoidance 101”

Ohio Lawmakers Targeting Elder Fraud

“It is really an epidemic of people going after our most frail and fragile citizens. They can convince them they won the lottery and they haven’t bought a ticket.”

Ohio’s just passed a new state law targeting those who defraud and exploit the elderly. The bill increases financial penalties for theft from an older person, defined by state law as anyone over 65 years old. This new law has teeth. It mandates anyone convicted of defrauding an elderly person to pay them back every penny they stole. That’s in addition to a fine that can be as high as $50,000, reports the Dayton Daily News in the article “New Ohio law targets elder fraud as cases on the rise: Here’s how it works.”

The new law was recently signed into law by Governor John Kasich. The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Steve Wilson, who commented that during his years at a local bank, he saw seniors being ripped off every day.

The new law adds certain financial professionals to the list of people who are now obligated to tell authorities, if they have a reasonable cause to suspect that a senior is being either abused, neglected or exploited.

There’s also an educational component to the new law. The Ohio Attorney General is now required, by law, to distribute at least six public awareness publications every year to educate the public on warning signs that elder abuse is taking place, how to report it if they suspect it and what resources are available to either prevent or remedy elder fraud or elder financial abuse.

It is often bank employees who are the first to notice when a regular customer’s patterns have changed. Someone who comes into the bank every week to withdraw a small amount of cash, suddenly makes a big withdrawal. The bank employee is now required to notify the authorities, if they suspect that something is not right.

One smart feature of the new law: the fines will go to county agencies tasked with investigating elder abuse, so the bill is self-funding and will pay for its implementation.

Common schemes now targeting seniors include scammers calling and pretending to be family members needing immediate financial help. Home repair scams often target the elderly. Earlier this year, a man in Ohio targeted seniors, claiming that he owned their homes using fake property deeds, then tried to sell the properties to buyers.

The Ohio Job and Family Services Directors’ Association did a survey in 2017 and found that elder abuse, neglect and exploitation is on the rise in the Buckeye State. Unfortunately, Ohio is far from the only state seeing an increase in elder abuse.

Reference: Dayton Daily News (Dec. 26, 2018) “New Ohio law targets elder fraud as cases on the rise: Here’s how it works”

A Cautionary Tale of Alleged Elder Abuse

“Mary Weiss lost her son, while he was enrolled in a controversial drug study at the University of Minnesota. The case drew worldwide attention. Weiss is now facing the loss of her home and retirement savings, after being taken advantage of by someone she trusted, according to police.”

This is a sad story that illustrates how even the smartest person can be vulnerable and preyed upon by someone they know and trust. Mary Weiss has endured the violent death of her son, four strokes and a heart attack, says Fox 9 in its report titled “Woman, who helped change research protocols at U of M, allegedly loses savings to caregiver.”

The person she depended on throughout it all, is the one who is suspected of taking advantage of her trusting nature. She says she was financially ruined and her nest egg of $150,000 is gone. Debt from credit cards and loans taken out in her name without her consent is mounting.

Weiss gained international attention for her battle with the University of Minnesota researchers who ran a research study of a psychiatric drug. Her son took his own life, while enrolled in the study. Because of her fight, the University made a number of changes to its research programs.

The man she believes has ripped her off, stood by her during that battle, speaking to reporters on her behalf. However, now he has been charged with one count of theft by swindle by the Washington County Attorney, following an investigation by the Cottage Grove Police Department.

Howard lived with Weiss, although they were not romantically involved, for 10 years and had become her caregiver. She had suffered a series of strokes and gave him power of attorney over her financial matters.

Weiss knew that Howard had a record, including a theft by swindle conviction, but she never thought he would do something bad to her.

It was Weiss’ niece who discovered the problem this past spring, when she was going through a year’s worth of bank statements. ATM withdrawals, lottery ticket purchases, loans and credit cards were all done in her name. Washington County Human Services did a separate investigation and notified Weiss that an allegation of financial exploitation had been substantiated.

Howard denies taking anything without Weiss’ consent.

Weiss is currently living in a nursing home and is recovering from a fall. She said that she would like to return to her townhome but is not sure she will be able to afford to do that. She wants others to understand that this can happen to anyone, even with full control of their senses and no dementia.

Elder financial abuse is a growing problem, as the number of seniors rises. Having a family member who is actively involved and looking out for aging family members is one of several ways to prevent elder abuse from a stranger. However, it is often a family member who is committing the crime.

Reference: Fox 9 (Oct. 22, 2018) “Woman, who helped change research protocols at U of M, allegedly loses savings to caregiver”

A Cautionary Tale of Alleged Elder Abuse

“Mary Weiss lost her son, while he was enrolled in a controversial drug study at the University of Minnesota. The case drew worldwide attention. Weiss is now facing the loss of her home and retirement savings, after being taken advantage of by someone she trusted, according to police.”

This is a sad story that illustrates how even the smartest person can be vulnerable and preyed upon by someone they know and trust. Mary Weiss has endured the violent death of her son, four strokes and a heart attack, says Fox 9 in its report titled “Woman, who helped change research protocols at U of M, allegedly loses savings to caregiver.”

The person she depended on throughout it all, is the one who is suspected of taking advantage of her trusting nature. She says she was financially ruined and her nest egg of $150,000 is gone. Debt from credit cards and loans taken out in her name without her consent is mounting.

Weiss gained international attention for her battle with the University of Minnesota researchers who ran a research study of a psychiatric drug. Her son took his own life, while enrolled in the study. Because of her fight, the University made a number of changes to its research programs.

The man she believes has ripped her off, stood by her during that battle, speaking to reporters on her behalf. However, now he has been charged with one count of theft by swindle by the Washington County Attorney, following an investigation by the Cottage Grove Police Department.

Howard lived with Weiss, although they were not romantically involved, for 10 years and had become her caregiver. She had suffered a series of strokes and gave him power of attorney over her financial matters.

Weiss knew that Howard had a record, including a theft by swindle conviction, but she never thought he would do something bad to her.

It was Weiss’ niece who discovered the problem this past spring, when she was going through a year’s worth of bank statements. ATM withdrawals, lottery ticket purchases, loans and credit cards were all done in her name. Washington County Human Services did a separate investigation and notified Weiss that an allegation of financial exploitation had been substantiated.

Howard denies taking anything without Weiss’ consent.

Weiss is currently living in a nursing home and is recovering from a fall. She said that she would like to return to her townhome but is not sure she will be able to afford to do that. She wants others to understand that this can happen to anyone, even with full control of their senses and no dementia.

Elder financial abuse is a growing problem, as the number of seniors rises. Having a family member who is actively involved and looking out for aging family members is one of several ways to prevent elder abuse from a stranger. However, it is often a family member who is committing the crime.

Reference: Fox 9 (Oct. 22, 2018) “Woman, who helped change research protocols at U of M, allegedly loses savings to caregiver”