My second and third attempts

I was starting to get a bit scared now. All the phone calls from the banks (read a typical phone call) were really starting to get to me and I just didn’t know what they would do – would I get arrested or something? I mean, you can’t just stop paying and expect nothing to happen. So I scraped together another couple of payments to stave off the terrible unknown and then rang another company. I contacted one of the aggressively advertised debt consolidation businesses that claim they can solve all your financial woes in five minutes over the phone, you know the type. They asked me all the same questions as the other place and then assured me they could secure a Part IX for me! It took about fifteen minutes and then they emailed a form to sign. The body of the email looked as though it had been copied and pasted, my name and some of my other details were in a different font, obviously added in afterward, and the pdf attachment had been photocopied and scanned a million times – it all just looked way to dodgy. I didn’t sign the form.

Instead, I made a pathetic third attempt to go bankrupt by doing it myself. I went to the ITSA website and read almost every page. I downloaded the bankruptcy forms and filled everything out as best I could. I’m a pretty organized person and had most of the information readily available. My biggest problem was a lack of tax returns for the companies I had been directing. I emailed our accountant to get the latest set of financials and received a curt email requesting payment before they would be released. There was about $2000 in fees still outstanding for that financial year. I didn’t have the money and I felt so ashamed I couldn’t bring myself to tell the accountant why I needed it.

So what did I do next? Nothing. I stopped paying my credit cards and my personal loan, I stopped answering my phone if it came up “private” or “unknown” (this is synonyn for “bank”), I didn’t open any letters I received from the bank and I just concentrated on winding up the business as best I could so I could escape and return home to my parents. And you know what happened next? Absolutely nothing. No bailiff knocked on the door, no scary biker types turned up to break my knees, the bank occasionally caught me on the work phone but I just told them I was going bankrupt and they would make their little notes and leave me alone for a week. I got away with this for four months.