[KiaSedona]

I live in Southern Ontario Canada and have the following situation :

I have received a collection call about an account closed due to a consumer proposal 4 years ago and they claim my wife's name was on the account for which I don't have any recollection nor papers to show that.

In the mean time I have included that account on my proposal and paid into it a lot of money until another financial hit , loss of job, hit us and went into bankruptcy and that account was part again of the bankruptcy.

Now after all these years I got a collection call claiming that this was a joint account and that my wife is responsible for repayment in whole of this account.

They misrepresented themselves as calling from the Bank and after my wife was keep telling them that she has no account with that bank they asked to talk to me at work.

They called me at work , don't know if that is legal or not, and explained that this account allegedly is a shared account and that we need to pay it in full asap..
The person declined to give me her name and she was well aware that I was bankrupt and that this account was part of my debt , she kept on repeating that my wife is responsible of the debt to which I told he r that she was not even legally supposed to call me in the first place and talk to me about the debt as I was protected by the bankruptcy .
She kept on saying that she was not calling about me but when I explained that legally I don't have to give her any information she finally asked to talk with my trustee and I gave her the information on how to do that.

First I don't know nor have any ways to check the validity of their claim that my wife was on the account because I don't have access anymore to that information and they didn't provide any proof about it.

I know about that debt as being mine and included in the proposal 4 years ago and into the bankruptcy 10 months ago.

That account was showing as in collection on my Credit Report so the bank did tried to collect long time ago as I don't recall having any transaction on that account since June or July of 2004 because I lost my job in that timeframe and become unable to make anymore payments.

At no time they tried to contact my wife about this alleged debt until yesterday when they called my home 3 times with no answer and today when they called first the house and them myself at work to a total of 5 calls in two days.

The stated that the account was recently put in collections which is bull... as this acount has ben deliquent for the past 4 years.

What do you advise me to do as I am recently out of bankruptcy with close to no money living from one paycheck to the other and with no means to pay a lawyer to defend myself and my wife.

[Iknowalotofstuff]

There are two issues you need to resolve:
1) get a copy of the credit card application and determine if she signed it or you simply asked that she have a card. The fact that you asked for her to have a card on your account does not make her automatically responsible. The CA or company has burden of proof to prove she is responsible. FIND OUT!

2) If you made a consumer proposal in 2004 and no other payments have been made since that time, the account is statute barred under Ontario's Limiation Act. The basic limitation period is 2 years. The last time you acknowleged the debt was when you included it in the consumer proposal. If neither you or your wife made any payments on the debt once the consumer proposal started, they cannot sue her to collect the money.

Tell the collection agency to provide a copy of her signature on the credit application or taking a long walk of a short peir. Tell them that it is your position that the account is statute barred and then make a complaint to SErvice Ontario - Ministry of Consumer & Business Services about harassment