Creditors, collectors, lawyers, etc... know that collection efforts yield them great amounts of earnings, the question is what collection tactics are they using to scare people into coming to terms? Very simple anyone who has ever been in debt knows about the correspondence, telephone calls, both at home and work and maybe even calls to close relatives and neighbors. Threats of lawsuits and wage garnishments, property having liens placed on and so on. Depending on who is collecting on the unpaid debt the process can be a nightmare.

Many people have chosen to drop out of the radar and go unnoticed until the statue of limitations runs out on their debt. This is rather hard to do because any time we start a new job we provide our new employer with our Social Security number and that alone is traceable and creditors and collectors have all the means to dig this information up.

Basically all bank accounts have to be closed, credit cards torn up, utility bills placed under someone else`s name, and so on, I think by now the picture is pretty clear. In order for creditors and collectors not to find someone that person has to become untraceable. Every day I speak with more people who have chosen to do this, to become untraceable due to the fact that they could not come to terms with the creditors and collectors they were dealing with.

Fear of being sued or losing whatever little savings there is has driven people to disappear. Time somehow catches up with people and all of a sudden they want to buy a house, get a loan for a new car, they are getting married, etc... Trying to regain that life they had once before they dropped out of the radar and guess what? The debt is still there!

At this time after a few years of having gone unnoticed all the debt has accumulated interest rates, late fees and so on. Debt that once was being collected on may now be at the hands of lawyers and ready for lawsuits. This debt still qualifies for settlements and hopefully all the time the person was not making payments they were saving money to settle these accounts when they came out of anonymity. This is not the case with most, only a few amount of people keep the debt on the back of their mind and actually settle these accounts later on.

This process by which people decide to go unnoticed is called ''Stealth Bankruptcy'' and in the last decade has been used widely both by people who cannot make payments on their debt, by people who truly have a hardship and by those who are just trying to avoid making payments on their loans.

Unfortunately for most of these people the new bankruptcy laws are taking a closer look at these cases and not being as flexible with them when they decide to file for bankruptcy. This leads many people back to square one: negotiate settlements on their debt with creditors and collectors.