OUT OF COMPETITION
Jack and Maria had discussed with an attorney which type of filing they should do in Merrillville Chapter 13 looked like the way they were going to go. I didn’t want them to file at all, but they insisted we had no choice. We went out to dinner the night I went to see them, and talked at quite a length about how they had gotten to this point. They were always careful business people, never getting out too far ahead of their bills, but as they got older they saw that they didn’t have enough saved for retirement. They felt they needed to take some chances in order to get a few leaps ahead. They decided to borrow heavily and try to buy out some of their competition. They felt that this would give them an edge in the area. The banks had no trouble lending to Jack and Maria. They had been good customers in the past. So they got the loans and bought out a few willing businesses. This worked out well for awhile. I asked them now how things were going, and it wasn’t going well. The business had fallen way off at their own store, and they found out that the books were cooked at the business they bought.