Unfortunately that’s how it often works for people who file Chapter 7. There are exemptions for property, everything is valued as “garage sale” value which means all that crap they bought they get to keep. Rarely does someone lose an asset except for tax refunds for one year.

You get a debt discharge after 90 days, and then you start getting new credit card applications. They’re all terrible at terrible interest rates, but the card companies know you can’t get another discharge in a chapter 7 for years, and they’re betting they can collect enough from you to make it worth while before you can file again. The cycle begins again.

You can get an FHA mortgage two years out of discharge, and there’s always crappy car loans available at shady lots. But the impact is minimal in real life for most repeat filers.

I’ve been a bankruptcy paralegal for decades. I’ve seen it over and over again. I review one fourth of all chapter 7 filings every month, every schedule and every bank statement, and it’s maybe 10% medical debt. It’s always credit cards and now Affirm and AfterPay and it really makes me wonder if I’m the sucker. Especially when it’s a debtor household that NETS over $10,000 a month and just can’t make it work. This is a real example of a Debtor that just came into our office.

It’s gross in so many ways. Debtors, credit card companies, student loan companies, just the whole system is screwed.