I can't find a thread on this topic on the forum but I need some advice! This is way outside my normal orbit.
Background: When we lived in Chicago, we employed a housekeeper. Not much education, heavy Bulgarian accent and sometimes confused by English. She's honest as the day is long, an incredibly hard worker and the salt of the earth. We always talk on the phone at Christmas time. Just before we left Chicago in 2000, she bought a relatively inexpensive townhouse on the western edge of the city. A year or two afterward, her adult daughter and the daughter's husband arrived from Bulgaria.
The situation: Over the phone on Christmas Day, she was upset. I always ask how things are going and this year, things were not going fine. Her son-in-law is a deadbeat (my words, not hers). He's been using her credit cards, taking money from her bank account, vacuuming her mail to hide what he's doing. I told her that we would help her in any way that we could. (I told her I wasn't going to send money to her home address if the s-i-l would filch that too.) She thanked me but said that her current employers had given her an advance on her pay so she was fine. I told her to call if she needed help.
This morning: She calls us. The problem is rather nastier than described at Christmas. She's got a few hundred dollars in the bank and a $20k credit card bill. I assume she's still got a mortgage to pay but I didn't ask. She doesn't want money. She's clearly embarrassed at even asking for help. She just wants to know what she can do to get herself out of the hole she's in.
Six years on, I know almost no one in Chicago. Those I do know have their answering machines on, probably because they're out of town. Googling for credit counselling services turns up more horror stories about people in trouble getting further ripped off than links to helpful sounding organizations. When I try to call the likeliest candidates, they're (a) on vacation, (b) the 800 number doesn't work from here, (c) the 800 number is now a 900 number, (d) the phone is disconnected. :
Suggestions are solicited.
Background: When we lived in Chicago, we employed a housekeeper. Not much education, heavy Bulgarian accent and sometimes confused by English. She's honest as the day is long, an incredibly hard worker and the salt of the earth. We always talk on the phone at Christmas time. Just before we left Chicago in 2000, she bought a relatively inexpensive townhouse on the western edge of the city. A year or two afterward, her adult daughter and the daughter's husband arrived from Bulgaria.
The situation: Over the phone on Christmas Day, she was upset. I always ask how things are going and this year, things were not going fine. Her son-in-law is a deadbeat (my words, not hers). He's been using her credit cards, taking money from her bank account, vacuuming her mail to hide what he's doing. I told her that we would help her in any way that we could. (I told her I wasn't going to send money to her home address if the s-i-l would filch that too.) She thanked me but said that her current employers had given her an advance on her pay so she was fine. I told her to call if she needed help.
This morning: She calls us. The problem is rather nastier than described at Christmas. She's got a few hundred dollars in the bank and a $20k credit card bill. I assume she's still got a mortgage to pay but I didn't ask. She doesn't want money. She's clearly embarrassed at even asking for help. She just wants to know what she can do to get herself out of the hole she's in.
Six years on, I know almost no one in Chicago. Those I do know have their answering machines on, probably because they're out of town. Googling for credit counselling services turns up more horror stories about people in trouble getting further ripped off than links to helpful sounding organizations. When I try to call the likeliest candidates, they're (a) on vacation, (b) the 800 number doesn't work from here, (c) the 800 number is now a 900 number, (d) the phone is disconnected. :
Suggestions are solicited.
