This story is about my brother. He’s been out of work for almost four years now with a workers comp claim. In the last four years he has had six surgeries which were two lower lumbar spinal fusions, upper neck spinal fusion, carpal tunnel on both hands, cubital tunnel on his left arm. He lives in California so workers comp stops paying you after two years, then they give you a loan of your future settlement, they subtract that amount when the settlement is issued. As you know living in California isn’t cheap, so the workers comp checks didn’t meet all his living needs, so he had to start using his credit cards to make ends meet.
Before all this he had a FICO of 800. He bought a nice 2016 GMC truck and almost had it paid off before he had to leave work because of his pain. One by one the banks started to cancel his credit cards and before they did he paid off his truck with one of them so they couldn’t repossess it. He ended up filing for bankruptcy three months ago. He doesn’t think he will be going back to work any time soon because he has to wait for all the final physicals from the State, which can take up to a year to finally get in for one. He has filed for permanent disability which can take up to a year to be approve, most times the first request is declined from what I read.
So my brother texted me and said he was approved for a credit card already, $2500 limit. I thought to myself, who would offer someone that filed bankruptcy three months ago a new credit card? I wasn’t pissed at my brother for getting a new credit card. You do have to build your credit back up in this world. I was pissed that banks are letting people have credit cards right after they filed for bankruptcy and all the debt they racked up in the past just disappears. I would think a year should pass before banks start letting these people have credit again. I think they should start with the credit cards that the person deposits their own money as the limit, this way they can rebuild their credit with their own money.
I will finish by saying I feel Big Bank and Big Pharma contribute to this countries on going problems.