Questions about debts or bankruptcy? Call Doug Beaton, a local specialist in American bankruptcy law.

Pick up a copy of the Boston Herald and way in the back with the sports pages and classifieds, you are bound to find several advertisements from attorneys or law firms advertising bankruptcy services from $399, $499, or maybe even $299. Is this real? Can you believe it? Is it just too good to be true?

But if you examine the fee disclosures of these attorneys for cases actually filed with the bankruptcy court, non of them are ever for $399. There are a few reasons why the advertised rate is just a myth:

* The old bait and switch — Not limited to just furniture stores or car dealers, this is where you arrive at the point of sale — here, a lawyer’s office — only to be pressured in to buying something else. Maybe you’d like a little “debt relief” instead of straight bankruptcy, perhaps? At these offices, no one ever gets to file a $399 bankruptcy, but hey, it did get you to show up at the office, right?

* The minimum fee is just an add-on — Here the attorney may try to get you to start with a more expensive procedure before resorting to bankruptcy. You may be “sold” on hiring him to “do” a loan modification, although the attorney knows full well that nearly all applicants are denied. After spending thousands on the modification process, bankruptcy becomes the only remaining option, and you are “relieved” when your aggressive advocate does the case for “only” $399. By comparison, it doesn’t seem that bad, right?

* The fee is only for a skeleton filing — the bankruptcy courts allow for emergency filings, which are intended for people facing imminent actions like foreclosures. They require a minimum of paperwork to start — typically just you name and address, a list of creditors, and a credit counseling certificate, and are sometimes knicnamed “skeleton” cases. The catch here is that the remainder of the paperwork is due in a couple of weeks — and it’s not included in the “introductory” fee. So you either pay more or have your case dismissed — with a bankruptcy filing still on your credit record.

The fact of the matter is you only get what you pay for, and $399 cannot pay for an ethical Massachusetts bankruptcy attorney. If an attorney cuts a corner here, where else is it going to happen?

If you are in Massachusetts, and are looking for an ethical bankruptcy attorney who will charge you a flat rate without playing games, give me call. The number is 978-975-2608. My bankruptcy office is conveniently located on Route 114 in North Andover, and is a short drive from Lawrence, Methuen, and Haverhill.

By Doug Beaton; art work by Matthew Cheyne; see more at www.matthewcheyne.com .

It’s August 1st, and just about every bankruptcy blog in the nation is fixated on the latest news regarding the debt ceiling and the proposed compromise bill now before Congress, so I thought it would be better to tread a little different ground.

Just for the record though, the United States as a whole can’t file for bankruptcy. Local governments can, and at this writing Jefferson County, Alabama (encompassing Birmingham) is considering it.

If governments are struggling so mightily to pay thier bills, how in the world can an ordinary individual cope? And if you have to file a bankruptcy case to get back on an even footing, how do you prevent yourself from going down the wrong road again?

Tracy at MoneyNING has an excellent post on ten ways to delay gratification so that you end up saving more and cultivating the ability to meet your needs. My favorite is number four — make spending money as cumbersome as possible. This echos a post I wrote last week on the perils of electronic banking. Simply put, the idea is that letting a bank or cresdit card company keep all your accounts for you makes it far too easy to spend money.

As Tracy puts it, “he problem with paying with plastic for many of us is that it just doesn’t seem real enough. Paying with cash can make you think twice and reconsider how much of a need this purchase is.”

Tracy advises putting your savings into a special account just for that purpose, and “making it difficult” to withdraw the funds for special purposes. In other words, no electronic banking!

Follow her advice, stay disciplined, and you will be back on your feet after a bankruptcy a lot quicker than you expected!

By Doug Beaton

It’s not financially easy for many people to hire a bankruptcy attorney, and they might try to think up some “creative” ways to swing the deal.

Here’s one that won’t work: giving your lawyer a series of post-dated checks, intending him to cash them at various points AFTER the case is filed.

It’s a little hard to believe that any attorney would even agree to this, but apparently some of them do. But just in case any more are tempted, a judge in Tampa has issued an opinion ending the practice. In essence, the judge said that the clients were creating pre-petition debts to their attaorney that could be discharged with the case.

California bankruptcy guru Cathy Moran points out that the post-dated check method also doesn’t fly in the Ninth Circuit, which covers most of the western states.

Here in Massachusetts, its very common for the chapter 7 trustees to “remind” bankruptcy debtors right at the meeting of creditors that they have a right to discharge unpaid fees to thier own bankruptcy lawyers. This makes for some intersting hearings, you can be sure!

By Doug Beaton