People in need, Beware! Your first clue (and mine) should be that they do not have a phone number OR and address to contact them if you have a problem. You can only send them an email, and it is limited in size and you cannot write another email until they respond to the first.
There are laws regulating the business of petition preparers. And this company is very simply breaking them, I am currently trying to pursue how to file a complaint with the US Trustee's office about the scam they are running.
They charge less than an attorney, but you get a whole lot less. They will not give you any advice about what to file, how to file (proper number of copies), and what they do give you is inaccurate and only applies to the federal bankruptcy code. What you have to understand is that every court district has DIFFERENT rules of court about what is required and how to file a bankruptcy properly to avoid it being dismissed.
This service, if you want to call it that, was very quick to prepare my documents, however, the creditor matrix was not formatted properly for my court district, they did not inform me that I needed to file my paycheck stubs as well, and they didn't even have both my and my husbands name on the files. The papers are completely useless and if I were to file them, I am sure my case would be dismissed.
But the biggest SCAM of all is this, as a bankruptcy petition preparer they are required to fill out a certain section of my petition with their address and other important information, then they have to file a separate document to the courts THEMSELVES, in which they tell the court how much they were paid to prepare my petition. When I recieved my original finished documents in an email, I was told by them to ignore that section and leave it blank. Isn't that perjury? Not to mention that I found out the question about whether I paid someone to prepare my papers is asked again at my creditor hearing. So I know that would be perjury!
When I sent them the short 900 letter question via email about what to do about the preparer section, they denied that they told me to leave it blank and that I should fill out whatever information I have on their company and the courts would be fine with it. WHAT INFORMATION is what I ask, I never rcvd their address, phone number, and I don't have the soc sec # of their chief officer, which is all required to be filled out on the paper. They are also supposed to sign my document, which they did not do.
I have a bad feeling that I will never get any of money back. I am just thankful I was able catch the mistakes myself before I made the tragic mistake of filing them incorrectly. I was able to prepare a new petition and the other schedules myself with the help of a different website that I searched for online. It meant a little more work on my part, but nothing major and it was only $20.00 versus the $185 I paid USA Bankruptcy Associates!!!
Please do not use this company! Do your research and if you are in the same boat as I am and can't afford an attorney, you should look into using the forms available online at a much lower cost.
The bottom line is an attorney is BEST, but with the new laws causing costs for a bankruptcy to be upwards of $1500, you may not be able to afford one. Do a little more work yourself by researching the federal code on bankruptcy and your local state code as well.
Just don't believe anything this company advertises, they are in the business of scamming people out of their money, and the crazy guarantee is just a bunch of hype! Don't believe it!
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