The McKinney (Mckmama & MckDaddy) bankruptcy 341 (creditors) meeting concluded on March 5, 2012. The meeting was originally held on 1/9/2012 but was not concluded due to the amount of missing and/or incomplete information on the part of the McKinney’s. A second meeting was scheduled for February 6, 2012 but neither debtor appeared, ostensibly due to an automobile accident involving Jennifer McKinney (MckMama) and an unknown reason for Israel McKinney (MckDaddy). The third creditors meeting was held on March 5, 2012 and the audio and transcript are available below.
(Wait for the Play symbol to appear)
Creditors Meeting II Audio
Creditors Meeting II AudioBankruptcy Petition #: 11-61215
341 Creditors Meeting 03/05/2012
TR: U.S. Trustee Gene W. Doeling
JM: Jennifer McKinney
IM: Israel McKinney
PW: Patty Wisecup, attorney for the debtors
SH: Sxxxxxx Hxxxxxx, landlord at The Farm
JM: Jennifer McKinney
IM: Israel McKinney
PW: Patty Wisecup, attorney for the debtors
SH: Sxxxxxx Hxxxxxx, landlord at The Farm
TR: Calling bankruptcy case Israel R. McKinney, Jennifer H. McKinney, Bankruptcy 11-61215. This is a continued 341 meeting. The previous meeting was held, I believe, a couple of months ago. Initially it was re-calendared to a February date. Mrs. McKinney had a car accident of some sort and Mr. McKinney wasn’t there, so it was rescheduled to today, March 5th. I’ll have you two note your names for the record.
IM: Israel McKinney.
JM: Jennifer McKinney.
TR: And you’re both still under oath. This is a continued report of _____ {00:33}. Do you recall taking your original oath in this case?
IM: I do.
JM: Yes.
TR: Do you understand you’re still both under oath?
IM: Yes.
JM: Yes.
TR: Alright.
I’ve had you provide me with various documentation, things of that nature. I have some questions for you regarding that. First is, is ma’am, we have a domain name contract for JenniferMcKinneyPhotography.com. Is that accurate?
JM: Yes.
TR: And you didn’t list that in your bankruptcy petition. Is that correct?
JM: It is no longer a current domain that I own.
TR: Okay. Did you let it lapse or what?
JM: Yes, I just didn’t renew it the last time it expired because I don’t use it anymore.
TR: So you don’t plan on renewing it, then?
JM: I don’t plan on it.
TR: And was that lapsed when you filed your bankruptcy on December 13th?
JM: Um, that’s a good question. I’m quite certain it had not lapsed then.
TR: Then why didn’t you list it on your schedules?
JM: I didn’t even think of it. List it as a?
TR: Well is it an asset? Is it something that had value?
JM: Uh, no. {01:37}
TR: What about MyCharmingKids.net?
JM: Yes. Those are very different.
TR: Okay, let’s talk about MyCharmingKids.net.
JM: Okay.
TR: That’s your domain name, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: That’s for a blog that you write?
JM: Yes.
TR: Alright. And does that have any value?
JM: The blog itself? The actual domain name?
TR: The domain name.
JM: I don’t know. Usually domains cost $10 a year, that’s how much I paid for that one.
TR: But your domain name, there’s a lot of people that follow your blog, correct?
JM: Yes, correct.
TR: And they identify it with that domain name, don’t they?
JM: Right.
TR: So it has value?
JM: I guess. I had never thought about it that way.
TR: Okay. And did you—has that been renewed by you?
JM: Yes.
TR: When?
JM: Um. About three or four months ago I remember that one coming up for renewal.
TR: What did you pay to renew it?
JM: It’s $10 a month for me—a year, I’m sorry—to host it through, um, Google.
TR: And you have another blog by the name of MckMama.com?
JM: That is the same. It is a URL that I bought that redirects to MyCharmingKids.net.
TR: So what did you pay for MckMama.com?
JM: Gosh; that one’s either $5 or $10 a year, also through Google.
TR: So you pay it or you pay to use it? You said you bought it, I thought you said.
JM: Yes, you buy the domain, so I own MckMama.com. I bought it through Google and I must continue to pay $10 a year for it to continue to be mine.
TR: Okay, so how much value does that have?
JM: Probably . . . I mean, $10.
TR: So you don’t mind then if I try to sell those domain names and pay you $10?
JM: Well I wouldn’t sell them for $10.
TR: What would you sell them for?
JM: Gosh, I wouldn’t . . . I would probably never sell them.
TR: It’s not a question of what you’d sell them for, it’s what value they have. It’s part of your bankruptcy schedules.
JM: Um. I would, uh . . . that’s a great question. I would probably sell it for, like, $50 and I would just buy a different one and then, you know, I would be able to figure something else out.
TR: Alright, so then you wouldn’t have an objection if I tried advertising this for sale, MckMama.com and MyCharmingKids.net?
JM: Well I would have a problem with it since it’s not yours to list for sale.
TR: It is mine. It’s the bankruptcy estate’s. You didn’t list it.
JM: Oh, got it. I see what you’re saying.
TR: It’s an undisclosed asset.
JM: Okay. No, I would figure something out. I mean, I would be able to survive without it.
TR: Okay, so I’ll put that on the list of sort of things that we plan to sell.
JM: Sure; I understand.
TR: And that will be the domain names—am I using the correct terminology, domain names?
JM: Yep, domain names or just URL.
TR: URLs and that would be MyCharmingKids
JM: dot net
TR: and MckMama.com?
JM: Yep.
TR: Any other domain names or URLs that you own?
JM: I also own, um, MyCharmingKids back-slash deals. I have a sort of subset coupon page part of my blog, but it’s its own domain page.
TR: MyCharmingKids/deals?
JM: MyCharmingKids.net/deals
TR: That’s another domain name that you have to pay for, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay. Any other ones?
JM: No. My photography one is done.
TR: So the photography one is expired?
JM: Yes.
TR: And this deals, is that where you sell things for other retailers? Through that?
JM: I share deals, right. Yep.
TR: And then you get kickbacks from manufacturers or retailers?
JM: Yes, through Amazon.
TR: How do you get paid by Amazon?
JM: PayPal.
TR: You get merchant credits?
JM: I don’t know what that is.
TR: So merchants put a credit on your account, like Amazon, for example. They give you a credit for deals that come through your site so that you have, let’s just say $100 of things you can buy at Amazon.
JM: Oh. Maybe they offer it. I just take it as a straight up payment to PayPal.
TR: So at the time that you filed bankruptcy on December 13th you did not have any credits with any manufacturer, any retailer, anybody that you’re selling stuff for through your site or partnering with? Is that right?
JM: No. The deals is pretty new, I still haven’t even really—I don’t think I’ve even gotten paid through Amazon. It’s sort of theoretical still.
TR: Prior to that bankruptcy did you have any—for example I’ve seen your blog and I’ve seen where you refer people to buy camera equipment and things like that.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now do you get a percentage or some sort of cut on the sale of that if somebody buys something, don’t you?
JM: Not until I got the deals page affiliate. You’re not allowed to use affiliate links on a blog unless you disclose them, so on my main blog page anything that I promote I am just sharing and I am not allowed to get a cut.
TR: So you haven’t gotten any cuts on anything that’s been sold or that referred to your website or web pages?
JM: Before I filed?
TR: Before you filed.
JM: Not through Amazon. I mean, let’s see . . . when my deals page first started I had a relationship, and I still do, with a coffee ministry, and my deals girls helped me promote that, and I did disclose that I got a cut and I was paid. That was not before I filed however, sorry, so I don’t know why I brought that up. I got like $150.
TR: So all these referrals, if you will, or links to camera equipment and things of that nature on your blog or website, you have never received any credits or money paid to you prior to the time that you filed bankruptcy?
JM: I do not believe so.
TR: Well you would know if you did, wouldn’t you?
JM: I don’t remember the exact—I may have gotten a small cut back from Amazon when we first started it, but I really don’t remember.
TR: I thought you said you didn’t start that until after you filed bankruptcy.
JM: Right. I just don’t—maybe I started it like two days before. It was around Christmastime, I remember that.
TR: Why’d you wait until after you filed bankruptcy to start that?
JM: Oh, I never thought of doing it. It was actually a friend that gave me the idea—”couponing blogs are big,” so I was like . . . It wasn’t that I waited, it was that I never thought of it until then.
TR: Sir, do you know anything about this money coming into the website?
IM: Specific monies that she’s received from companies for writing? That’s your question?
TR: For writing or for products or links to products that are being sold.
IM: Previous to our bankruptcy filing on December—does that include things that they sent? I mean, we got a refrigerator, we got a—did we list those things? They were a couple of years ago, but.
TR: Let me ask you this. In the six months before you filed bankruptcy, so let’s go to June of 2011, right?
IM: Okay.
TR: Did you get any appliances were sent to you by anybody that Mrs. McKinney does—either mentions on her blog or does work for?
IM: I would say no.
TR: Okay. Prior to that, apparently there were appliances that were given?
IM: There was a Samsung refrigerator . . .
TR: Do you have any knowledge of any money coming into the house? Any checks coming into the house from any of these—Amazon or any other companies that she might be giving a reference for or directing people to a site where they can buy equipment?
IM: Not that I’m aware of, no.
TR: For example I know—I can see there’s . . . I think it’s Canon camera equipment that you can look at different lenses that she suggests that you might want to buy, that the reading public might want to buy.
IM: Right.
TR: Any checks from Canon or retailers selling Canon?
IM: I’m not aware that she receives checks from any of those. I’ve seen those writings that you’re mentioning but I’ve never seen a check come in the mail and she’s never spoken of money that she’s gotten from them for writing those.
TR: You’ve never heard that she’s received money through PayPal or any other entity for those types of things?
IM: Not for that. Not for that.
TR: Okay.
The, um, Mrs. McKinney, are you doing these photoshoots again?
JM: I have not.
TR: I think I read on your website recently that they’re all filled up for the next—
JM: Photo classes, sorry. Photoshoots I’m not doing.
TR: Okay.
JM: Online photo classes.
TR: Alright. You stopped doing that prior to filing bankruptcy?
JM: I hadn’t offered those before. This is new. I had done photoshoots. That was in person, taking pictures of people’s families. Photo classes are different.
TR: Last time we talked about the camper and you testified, that I recall, that there was one camper that you were renting from a neighbor. Is that right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Did you ever own a second camper?
JM: No.
TR: And there was a camper—did you sell a camper on Craigslist?
JM: We never had owned it.
TR: You sold a camper on Craigslist that you didn’t own?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: How would you sell a camper on Craigslist you didn’t own? What authority did you have?
IM: What’s the question?
TR: What authority did you have to sell a camper on Craigslist that you didn’t own?
IM: Um, I believe we never titled it, the camper, in our name; therefore it was never ours.
TR: This isn’t a game of semantics. Did you own it, even though it wasn’t titled in your name? Did you pay for it?
IM: Uh, I was advised that if we did not title it in our name, we never owned it.
TR: Who paid—who advised you of that?
IM: Um, I think that we got that advice at this meeting last time from our counsel.
TR: Alright. Did you pay for it?
IM: Uh, I didn’t because I wasn’t working but yes, we together paid for it. My wife wrote the check.
TR: Alright. We can be here a long time. In fact if we don’t get any straight answers we’re going to be here a long time.
Now last time I asked you about the camper you said you never owned it, ma’am, and that’s because it wasn’t titled in your name?
JM: Correct.
TR: What kind of camper was it?
IM: Jayco Jayflight.
TR: What year?
IM: Um, not certain. Do you remember.
JM: Mm-mm [no].
TR: How many feet was it?
IM: 34 I believe.
TR: Slide?
IM: One slide, yes?
TR: Travel trailer, or uh—
IM: Travel trailer.
TR: What’d you pay for it?
IM: Do you remember?
JM: 12?
TR: 12,000?
JM: I think 12,000
TR: Did you pay cash?
IM: Cash or check?
JM: No, I think I paid him through PayPal?
IM: Yeah, you did.
TR: Who’d you buy it from?
IM: A man in Madison, Wisconsin.
TR: Did you find it on Craigslist, or somebody you knew?
JM: We found it on some online thing, I think Craigslist.
TR: Alright, so you bought it. What year did you buy it?
JM: We bought it on the way home from our first trip.
IM: Yeah, 2011
TR: January?
JM: You said what year.
IM: Uh, it would have been March, I believe?
TR: Alright, so you bought it in three of 2011, you paid $12,000 for it, you paid for it through PayPal. When did you sell it—what month?
JM: It wasn’t long after we got back.
IM: June? May?
JM: Probably May or June.
IM: May? I believe it was late May.
TR: May of 2011?
IM: Yes.
TR: What’d you sell it for?
IM: What did you sell it for, 85?
JM: No, I think it was like 90
IM: You listed it for 10
JM: I think I sold it for $9,000.
TR: Alright.
JM: And I think that deposit was on my bank statement.
TR: So you sold it for $9,000. Alright.
JM: Yep.
TR: Okay.
IM: I think it was 85; they talked you down an extra 500.
JM: Oh yeah, I think you might be right.
TR: Who bought it?
IM: A couple on Craigslist from South Metro.
TR: Okay. No one any relation to you?
IM: No.
TR: So in other words you were just holding an open title. Is that right?
IM: I’m not aware what that means, but.
TR: You bought it, you didn’t title it in your name and you sold it, and you just transferred whatever interest you had to somebody else.
IM: That’s right.
TR: And the $8,500? What account did that get deposited into?
JM: I’m quite certain it was our Wells Fargo.
TR: Which one? You have several Wells Fargo accounts.
JM: The main one, the Jennifer McKinney Photography, I would think. That was really all we used at that point.
TR: So if we look at the June bank statement or May bank statement.
IM: May or June, yeah. Late May, early, mid June.
TR: [unintelligible; shuffling of papers]. There it is.
JM: These are all the checks I deposited.
[shuffling through papers]
JM: You know what? You remember they gave us a bunch of cash because they had been ready to buy that other camper? Remember that, and had gotten all this loan to buy this–
IM: I don’t really remember it but if you do, tell me how much the check _____.
JM: Do you remember a bunch of cash? I remember, sir, that they gave us a bunch of cash and then wrote us a check for the difference, because they had been preparing to buy another camper and it fell through. They had already gotten the loan, I think, and the cash.
TR: So if they wrote you a check then you should have a copy of the check.
JM: Yep, actually I have every check that I ever deposited, that you had requested, and I actually have them all in here.
TR: Okay; see if you can find it.
[shuffling through papers]
TR: Sir, you’re looking through the bank statements, have you found it yet?
IM: No.
[shuffling through papers]
So are you remembering, Jennifer?
JM: I’m just thinking that . . .
IM: The amount of the check versus the cash?
JM: They wrote us—I think it was a huge pile of cash. I remember that now.
IM: Like $5,000 in cash and then $3,500 in check? Here’s a deposit on June 24th for this amount. Usually the other deposits are, like, Google AdSense, stuff like that.
JM: I’m trying to find the date so I can narrow it down. I think I can.
IM: That date was June 24th.
JM: Okay.
[shuffling through papers]
IM: Here’s a deposit.
JM: No, we didn’t sell it ’til looks like the end of July. ‘Cause you know what, honey, we were still gone on the 4th of July. We were in Yellowstone, we had my birthday in North Dakota, or something like that? So it wasn’t until the end of July.
IM: Okay.
TR: So is there a deposit in July in your bank statements reflecting money from that?
IM: Not that I see in July. I mean, I’ve got one . . .
[muted conversation between JM and another female]
JM: I also left some deposits in my car that I . . .
TR: Here’s the photography. Let’s see, it goes back to July—this one goes back to October.
IM: Here’s a deposit in August.
JM: Yep. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it.
TR: How much is it?
JM: $6,325 even, so that would be six, seven, eight—that would only leave about a couple thousand dollars in cash.
TR: So there’s a deposit on August 8th?
IM: September.
PW: What day?
IM: 22nd.
TR: On the 27th, 22nd of $6,000 . . .
IM: Um, $325 even.
TR: So where did the $2,000 cash go, or $2,200
JM: I’m sure we just kept it and gradually used it for groceries and gas, and groceries and gas, and groceries and gas.
TR: So do either one of you recall for sure if you got a check and cash or . . .
IM: It was check and cash, I just don’t know the amount.
JM: It was.
TR: Any other property? Cars? Campers? Anything else that you sold, whether you held title to it or not?
IM: No.
TR: No?
IM: No.
JM: From when to when, sir? What are you asking?
TR: Six months prior to your bankruptcy filing.
JM: No. We had the garage sale that you already asked us about, but . . .
TR: You told me you sold little or nothing there, if I recall.
JM: Yeah, nothing of significance. A couple hundred.
TR: A couple hundred bucks?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now you filed bankruptcy on December 13th. In my notes here it says that you had a number of these photography workshops in 2011, as late as December 5th. It’s your testimony that you didn’t have any of these photography workshops?
JM: If I said that I did then I _____ that I did. Workshops in person, and that was also a second thing that I did, a couple of those, in Texas.
TR: So you did in person workshops where you drove around the country and then you had—you also had workshops online or via telephone conference?
JM: Yeah, those are new. The driving around was around this winter.
TR: You did online photography workshops prior to your bankruptcy filing, didn’t you?
JM: I don’t think so.
TR: You sold your livestock and goats. Did you sell those prior to the bankruptcy filing or after?
JM: After.
TR: How much did you get for them?
JM: Most I gave away to friends. I made $300 off of two of the purebred pregnant moms.
TR: Goats?
JM: Goats. The chickens and the baby goats and the other goats I found friends who took them and he found a neighbor who took one.
TR: So are you going to get them back at some point in time or did you—?
JM: No. We are done with farm animals.
TR: Now you were charging $250 an hour for your photoshoots?
JM: Yeah, that was the very first I ever charged. I now charge $45. Those are for the online ones. The in person ones were four hours long and that was my first fee. I think I lowered it then, I don’t know what it was, to maybe $200 or $175?
TR: Canvas People.
JM: Canvas People.
TR: Did you get credits for their website?
JM: It doesn’t sound familiar but I think that’s one that my deals girls . . .
TR: Did you have that before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: I don’t think so.
TR: You said you didn’t have Amazon or you didn’t–
JM: I may—I just had had it and I think what it is, sir, is they don’t really pay you until you get a certain amount, like I do remember her once telling me “we’ve made $12″ and I don’t think that they pay you. I guess I don’t know the date but I know we started it right around Christmas.
TR: So how do you keep track of what these entities pay you? Do you get a statement from them?
JM: Which entities are you talking about?
TR: All these entities. Canvas People, Amazon, Briar Claire, Mini Boden, Myron Shoes . . .
JM: I don’t keep track of those individually. Those go to the lump sort of Amazon main deals, and then I get—I guess I assume I’ll get like a 1099 from them or something.
TR: Okay, so you could provide me with a statement from Amazon _____ deals from all your 2011 activity, to the extent that it exists, right?
JM: Yes; yep. Yeah, even if I hadn’t been paid on it, at least we could see how much is—I don’t run that so I don’t keep track of it very well.
TR: Do you have the ability to go online and look?
JM: Yes I do.
TR: I won’t ask for it now because there’s somebody present, but I may ask for the access to that account as we did with the Google AdSense.
JM: Sure, yep, I’m comfortable with that.
TR: Alright, so you recognize these names—Briar Claire, Mini Boden, Myron Shoes?
JM: Um, Briar Claire and those other ones, those are personal, a personal company by a girl I know that sells hair clips, and she has advertised with me by paying me money to advertise on my blog in the more direct way. That is not an affiliate. Mini Boden, I don’t get money from them.
TR: So you get paid by Briar Claire to advertise on your–
JM: To put their ads, square ad, on the side of my blog.
TR: Okay, so how long have you been doing that?
JM: Oh I’ve always been doing that for years; that’s how I first started making money on my blog.
TR: So when you filed your bankruptcy how many of these ads did you have up that you were getting paid for?
JM: Well by this point sir, I hadn’t had any up because then I had a relationship with BlogHer and Say and now Google Ads, so I stopped—I haven’t done Briar Claire in quite a long time. Does that . . ?
TR: So you filed bankruptcy, you’re still doing Google AdSense, right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: So you suddenly start doing all these other ads, too? Right after you filed bankruptcy?
JM: No I’m not doing them anymore.
TR: Okay. Why’d you stop?
JM: Because I had got a relationship with the bigger ad networks that were more lucrative than small people’s ads, always kind of having those up. I still do them from time to time, like twice a year to promote, like, my readers’ Etsy sites, their small business, ’cause they—so I sometimes do that. But for the most part my income is from my ad network, straight up.
TR: Let’s talk about your Google AdSense account. I’ve looked at that and there’s page views and clicks and things of that nature.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Why is it that for the month of December there’s less than, at the very most, 35 page clicks on any one day.
JM: Because I believe in December I had switched from Google AdSense to Burst, my fourth or so ad network, hoping they would be more lucrative for me, so I shut off my Google Ads and they only fill when Burst runs out, so maybe by the end of each day Burst has shown as much as they’re allowed to and then it will automatically go to Google.
TR: So then why on, say, February 1st, for example, you went to 24,354 clicks on Google AdSense?
JM: Because Burst, after staying with them for about a month and a half, I only made like $700, when I had been making like $1,500 or so with Google Ads, so I decided to turn those off and go back to Google. It’s kind of a balance of finding how I can get paid the most.
TR: So why did you switch to Burst? What did they offer you to move with them?
JM: Um, no one offers you anything in this industry, any certain promise. They can sort of say “we have a lot of good relationships, blah, blah, blah.” I had a friend in the industry who recommended them and said he thought they could be good for my page views, so I just thought I would try, and they didn’t promise me anything except to fill my blog as best they could. It just wasn’t as good as Google so I went back.
TR: So when did you switch to Burst?
JM: I don’t remember exactly but I’m assuming if you saw that in December, maybe it was December? I can look it up.
TR: I remember going farther back in your logs and seeing like in June or July that your Google went down to less than 30 clicks.
JM: Right. That was probably, sir, when I switched to Say. We talked a lot about Say last time. I was with them and they were quite lucrative for me until I was no longer able to be with them.
TR: Why weren’t you able to stay with Say anymore?
JM: They were the ones that BlogFrog worked with and BlogFrog itself decided that it wasn’t lucrative enough for them to stay with, so they couldn’t serve it to me any longer.
Okay, I was with Say through November, had Google Ads up for a little bit in the interim, added Burst in the middle of December, and then took them down again relatively recently and put Google back up.
TR: Did you switch providers in anticipation of filing your Chapter 7 bankruptcy?
JM: No, not at all. I’ve been trying to make the most money I can to not have to file, but now I’m just trying to make the most money I can to support our family.
IM: Israel McKinney.
JM: Jennifer McKinney.
TR: And you’re both still under oath. This is a continued report of _____ {00:33}. Do you recall taking your original oath in this case?
IM: I do.
JM: Yes.
TR: Do you understand you’re still both under oath?
IM: Yes.
JM: Yes.
TR: Alright.
I’ve had you provide me with various documentation, things of that nature. I have some questions for you regarding that. First is, is ma’am, we have a domain name contract for JenniferMcKinneyPhotography.com. Is that accurate?
JM: Yes.
TR: And you didn’t list that in your bankruptcy petition. Is that correct?
JM: It is no longer a current domain that I own.
TR: Okay. Did you let it lapse or what?
JM: Yes, I just didn’t renew it the last time it expired because I don’t use it anymore.
TR: So you don’t plan on renewing it, then?
JM: I don’t plan on it.
TR: And was that lapsed when you filed your bankruptcy on December 13th?
JM: Um, that’s a good question. I’m quite certain it had not lapsed then.
TR: Then why didn’t you list it on your schedules?
JM: I didn’t even think of it. List it as a?
TR: Well is it an asset? Is it something that had value?
JM: Uh, no. {01:37}
TR: What about MyCharmingKids.net?
JM: Yes. Those are very different.
TR: Okay, let’s talk about MyCharmingKids.net.
JM: Okay.
TR: That’s your domain name, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: That’s for a blog that you write?
JM: Yes.
TR: Alright. And does that have any value?
JM: The blog itself? The actual domain name?
TR: The domain name.
JM: I don’t know. Usually domains cost $10 a year, that’s how much I paid for that one.
TR: But your domain name, there’s a lot of people that follow your blog, correct?
JM: Yes, correct.
TR: And they identify it with that domain name, don’t they?
JM: Right.
TR: So it has value?
JM: I guess. I had never thought about it that way.
TR: Okay. And did you—has that been renewed by you?
JM: Yes.
TR: When?
JM: Um. About three or four months ago I remember that one coming up for renewal.
TR: What did you pay to renew it?
JM: It’s $10 a month for me—a year, I’m sorry—to host it through, um, Google.
TR: And you have another blog by the name of MckMama.com?
JM: That is the same. It is a URL that I bought that redirects to MyCharmingKids.net.
TR: So what did you pay for MckMama.com?
JM: Gosh; that one’s either $5 or $10 a year, also through Google.
TR: So you pay it or you pay to use it? You said you bought it, I thought you said.
JM: Yes, you buy the domain, so I own MckMama.com. I bought it through Google and I must continue to pay $10 a year for it to continue to be mine.
TR: Okay, so how much value does that have?
JM: Probably . . . I mean, $10.
TR: So you don’t mind then if I try to sell those domain names and pay you $10?
JM: Well I wouldn’t sell them for $10.
TR: What would you sell them for?
JM: Gosh, I wouldn’t . . . I would probably never sell them.
TR: It’s not a question of what you’d sell them for, it’s what value they have. It’s part of your bankruptcy schedules.
JM: Um. I would, uh . . . that’s a great question. I would probably sell it for, like, $50 and I would just buy a different one and then, you know, I would be able to figure something else out.
TR: Alright, so then you wouldn’t have an objection if I tried advertising this for sale, MckMama.com and MyCharmingKids.net?
JM: Well I would have a problem with it since it’s not yours to list for sale.
TR: It is mine. It’s the bankruptcy estate’s. You didn’t list it.
JM: Oh, got it. I see what you’re saying.
TR: It’s an undisclosed asset.
JM: Okay. No, I would figure something out. I mean, I would be able to survive without it.
TR: Okay, so I’ll put that on the list of sort of things that we plan to sell.
JM: Sure; I understand.
TR: And that will be the domain names—am I using the correct terminology, domain names?
JM: Yep, domain names or just URL.
TR: URLs and that would be MyCharmingKids
JM: dot net
TR: and MckMama.com?
JM: Yep.
TR: Any other domain names or URLs that you own?
JM: I also own, um, MyCharmingKids back-slash deals. I have a sort of subset coupon page part of my blog, but it’s its own domain page.
TR: MyCharmingKids/deals?
JM: MyCharmingKids.net/deals
TR: That’s another domain name that you have to pay for, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay. Any other ones?
JM: No. My photography one is done.
TR: So the photography one is expired?
JM: Yes.
TR: And this deals, is that where you sell things for other retailers? Through that?
JM: I share deals, right. Yep.
TR: And then you get kickbacks from manufacturers or retailers?
JM: Yes, through Amazon.
TR: How do you get paid by Amazon?
JM: PayPal.
TR: You get merchant credits?
JM: I don’t know what that is.
TR: So merchants put a credit on your account, like Amazon, for example. They give you a credit for deals that come through your site so that you have, let’s just say $100 of things you can buy at Amazon.
JM: Oh. Maybe they offer it. I just take it as a straight up payment to PayPal.
TR: So at the time that you filed bankruptcy on December 13th you did not have any credits with any manufacturer, any retailer, anybody that you’re selling stuff for through your site or partnering with? Is that right?
JM: No. The deals is pretty new, I still haven’t even really—I don’t think I’ve even gotten paid through Amazon. It’s sort of theoretical still.
TR: Prior to that bankruptcy did you have any—for example I’ve seen your blog and I’ve seen where you refer people to buy camera equipment and things like that.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now do you get a percentage or some sort of cut on the sale of that if somebody buys something, don’t you?
JM: Not until I got the deals page affiliate. You’re not allowed to use affiliate links on a blog unless you disclose them, so on my main blog page anything that I promote I am just sharing and I am not allowed to get a cut.
TR: So you haven’t gotten any cuts on anything that’s been sold or that referred to your website or web pages?
JM: Before I filed?
TR: Before you filed.
JM: Not through Amazon. I mean, let’s see . . . when my deals page first started I had a relationship, and I still do, with a coffee ministry, and my deals girls helped me promote that, and I did disclose that I got a cut and I was paid. That was not before I filed however, sorry, so I don’t know why I brought that up. I got like $150.
TR: So all these referrals, if you will, or links to camera equipment and things of that nature on your blog or website, you have never received any credits or money paid to you prior to the time that you filed bankruptcy?
JM: I do not believe so.
TR: Well you would know if you did, wouldn’t you?
JM: I don’t remember the exact—I may have gotten a small cut back from Amazon when we first started it, but I really don’t remember.
TR: I thought you said you didn’t start that until after you filed bankruptcy.
JM: Right. I just don’t—maybe I started it like two days before. It was around Christmastime, I remember that.
TR: Why’d you wait until after you filed bankruptcy to start that?
JM: Oh, I never thought of doing it. It was actually a friend that gave me the idea—”couponing blogs are big,” so I was like . . . It wasn’t that I waited, it was that I never thought of it until then.
TR: Sir, do you know anything about this money coming into the website?
IM: Specific monies that she’s received from companies for writing? That’s your question?
TR: For writing or for products or links to products that are being sold.
IM: Previous to our bankruptcy filing on December—does that include things that they sent? I mean, we got a refrigerator, we got a—did we list those things? They were a couple of years ago, but.
TR: Let me ask you this. In the six months before you filed bankruptcy, so let’s go to June of 2011, right?
IM: Okay.
TR: Did you get any appliances were sent to you by anybody that Mrs. McKinney does—either mentions on her blog or does work for?
IM: I would say no.
TR: Okay. Prior to that, apparently there were appliances that were given?
IM: There was a Samsung refrigerator . . .
TR: Do you have any knowledge of any money coming into the house? Any checks coming into the house from any of these—Amazon or any other companies that she might be giving a reference for or directing people to a site where they can buy equipment?
IM: Not that I’m aware of, no.
TR: For example I know—I can see there’s . . . I think it’s Canon camera equipment that you can look at different lenses that she suggests that you might want to buy, that the reading public might want to buy.
IM: Right.
TR: Any checks from Canon or retailers selling Canon?
IM: I’m not aware that she receives checks from any of those. I’ve seen those writings that you’re mentioning but I’ve never seen a check come in the mail and she’s never spoken of money that she’s gotten from them for writing those.
TR: You’ve never heard that she’s received money through PayPal or any other entity for those types of things?
IM: Not for that. Not for that.
TR: Okay.
The, um, Mrs. McKinney, are you doing these photoshoots again?
JM: I have not.
TR: I think I read on your website recently that they’re all filled up for the next—
JM: Photo classes, sorry. Photoshoots I’m not doing.
TR: Okay.
JM: Online photo classes.
TR: Alright. You stopped doing that prior to filing bankruptcy?
JM: I hadn’t offered those before. This is new. I had done photoshoots. That was in person, taking pictures of people’s families. Photo classes are different.
TR: Last time we talked about the camper and you testified, that I recall, that there was one camper that you were renting from a neighbor. Is that right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Did you ever own a second camper?
JM: No.
TR: And there was a camper—did you sell a camper on Craigslist?
JM: We never had owned it.
TR: You sold a camper on Craigslist that you didn’t own?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: How would you sell a camper on Craigslist you didn’t own? What authority did you have?
IM: What’s the question?
TR: What authority did you have to sell a camper on Craigslist that you didn’t own?
IM: Um, I believe we never titled it, the camper, in our name; therefore it was never ours.
TR: This isn’t a game of semantics. Did you own it, even though it wasn’t titled in your name? Did you pay for it?
IM: Uh, I was advised that if we did not title it in our name, we never owned it.
TR: Who paid—who advised you of that?
IM: Um, I think that we got that advice at this meeting last time from our counsel.
TR: Alright. Did you pay for it?
IM: Uh, I didn’t because I wasn’t working but yes, we together paid for it. My wife wrote the check.
TR: Alright. We can be here a long time. In fact if we don’t get any straight answers we’re going to be here a long time.
Now last time I asked you about the camper you said you never owned it, ma’am, and that’s because it wasn’t titled in your name?
JM: Correct.
TR: What kind of camper was it?
IM: Jayco Jayflight.
TR: What year?
IM: Um, not certain. Do you remember.
JM: Mm-mm [no].
TR: How many feet was it?
IM: 34 I believe.
TR: Slide?
IM: One slide, yes?
TR: Travel trailer, or uh—
IM: Travel trailer.
TR: What’d you pay for it?
IM: Do you remember?
JM: 12?
TR: 12,000?
JM: I think 12,000
TR: Did you pay cash?
IM: Cash or check?
JM: No, I think I paid him through PayPal?
IM: Yeah, you did.
TR: Who’d you buy it from?
IM: A man in Madison, Wisconsin.
TR: Did you find it on Craigslist, or somebody you knew?
JM: We found it on some online thing, I think Craigslist.
TR: Alright, so you bought it. What year did you buy it?
JM: We bought it on the way home from our first trip.
IM: Yeah, 2011
TR: January?
JM: You said what year.
IM: Uh, it would have been March, I believe?
TR: Alright, so you bought it in three of 2011, you paid $12,000 for it, you paid for it through PayPal. When did you sell it—what month?
JM: It wasn’t long after we got back.
IM: June? May?
JM: Probably May or June.
IM: May? I believe it was late May.
TR: May of 2011?
IM: Yes.
TR: What’d you sell it for?
IM: What did you sell it for, 85?
JM: No, I think it was like 90
IM: You listed it for 10
JM: I think I sold it for $9,000.
TR: Alright.
JM: And I think that deposit was on my bank statement.
TR: So you sold it for $9,000. Alright.
JM: Yep.
TR: Okay.
IM: I think it was 85; they talked you down an extra 500.
JM: Oh yeah, I think you might be right.
TR: Who bought it?
IM: A couple on Craigslist from South Metro.
TR: Okay. No one any relation to you?
IM: No.
TR: So in other words you were just holding an open title. Is that right?
IM: I’m not aware what that means, but.
TR: You bought it, you didn’t title it in your name and you sold it, and you just transferred whatever interest you had to somebody else.
IM: That’s right.
TR: And the $8,500? What account did that get deposited into?
JM: I’m quite certain it was our Wells Fargo.
TR: Which one? You have several Wells Fargo accounts.
JM: The main one, the Jennifer McKinney Photography, I would think. That was really all we used at that point.
TR: So if we look at the June bank statement or May bank statement.
IM: May or June, yeah. Late May, early, mid June.
TR: [unintelligible; shuffling of papers]. There it is.
JM: These are all the checks I deposited.
[shuffling through papers]
JM: You know what? You remember they gave us a bunch of cash because they had been ready to buy that other camper? Remember that, and had gotten all this loan to buy this–
IM: I don’t really remember it but if you do, tell me how much the check _____.
JM: Do you remember a bunch of cash? I remember, sir, that they gave us a bunch of cash and then wrote us a check for the difference, because they had been preparing to buy another camper and it fell through. They had already gotten the loan, I think, and the cash.
TR: So if they wrote you a check then you should have a copy of the check.
JM: Yep, actually I have every check that I ever deposited, that you had requested, and I actually have them all in here.
TR: Okay; see if you can find it.
[shuffling through papers]
TR: Sir, you’re looking through the bank statements, have you found it yet?
IM: No.
[shuffling through papers]
So are you remembering, Jennifer?
JM: I’m just thinking that . . .
IM: The amount of the check versus the cash?
JM: They wrote us—I think it was a huge pile of cash. I remember that now.
IM: Like $5,000 in cash and then $3,500 in check? Here’s a deposit on June 24th for this amount. Usually the other deposits are, like, Google AdSense, stuff like that.
JM: I’m trying to find the date so I can narrow it down. I think I can.
IM: That date was June 24th.
JM: Okay.
[shuffling through papers]
IM: Here’s a deposit.
JM: No, we didn’t sell it ’til looks like the end of July. ‘Cause you know what, honey, we were still gone on the 4th of July. We were in Yellowstone, we had my birthday in North Dakota, or something like that? So it wasn’t until the end of July.
IM: Okay.
TR: So is there a deposit in July in your bank statements reflecting money from that?
IM: Not that I see in July. I mean, I’ve got one . . .
[muted conversation between JM and another female]
JM: I also left some deposits in my car that I . . .
TR: Here’s the photography. Let’s see, it goes back to July—this one goes back to October.
IM: Here’s a deposit in August.
JM: Yep. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it.
TR: How much is it?
JM: $6,325 even, so that would be six, seven, eight—that would only leave about a couple thousand dollars in cash.
TR: So there’s a deposit on August 8th?
IM: September.
PW: What day?
IM: 22nd.
TR: On the 27th, 22nd of $6,000 . . .
IM: Um, $325 even.
TR: So where did the $2,000 cash go, or $2,200
JM: I’m sure we just kept it and gradually used it for groceries and gas, and groceries and gas, and groceries and gas.
TR: So do either one of you recall for sure if you got a check and cash or . . .
IM: It was check and cash, I just don’t know the amount.
JM: It was.
TR: Any other property? Cars? Campers? Anything else that you sold, whether you held title to it or not?
IM: No.
TR: No?
IM: No.
JM: From when to when, sir? What are you asking?
TR: Six months prior to your bankruptcy filing.
JM: No. We had the garage sale that you already asked us about, but . . .
TR: You told me you sold little or nothing there, if I recall.
JM: Yeah, nothing of significance. A couple hundred.
TR: A couple hundred bucks?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now you filed bankruptcy on December 13th. In my notes here it says that you had a number of these photography workshops in 2011, as late as December 5th. It’s your testimony that you didn’t have any of these photography workshops?
JM: If I said that I did then I _____ that I did. Workshops in person, and that was also a second thing that I did, a couple of those, in Texas.
TR: So you did in person workshops where you drove around the country and then you had—you also had workshops online or via telephone conference?
JM: Yeah, those are new. The driving around was around this winter.
TR: You did online photography workshops prior to your bankruptcy filing, didn’t you?
JM: I don’t think so.
TR: You sold your livestock and goats. Did you sell those prior to the bankruptcy filing or after?
JM: After.
TR: How much did you get for them?
JM: Most I gave away to friends. I made $300 off of two of the purebred pregnant moms.
TR: Goats?
JM: Goats. The chickens and the baby goats and the other goats I found friends who took them and he found a neighbor who took one.
TR: So are you going to get them back at some point in time or did you—?
JM: No. We are done with farm animals.
TR: Now you were charging $250 an hour for your photoshoots?
JM: Yeah, that was the very first I ever charged. I now charge $45. Those are for the online ones. The in person ones were four hours long and that was my first fee. I think I lowered it then, I don’t know what it was, to maybe $200 or $175?
TR: Canvas People.
JM: Canvas People.
TR: Did you get credits for their website?
JM: It doesn’t sound familiar but I think that’s one that my deals girls . . .
TR: Did you have that before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: I don’t think so.
TR: You said you didn’t have Amazon or you didn’t–
JM: I may—I just had had it and I think what it is, sir, is they don’t really pay you until you get a certain amount, like I do remember her once telling me “we’ve made $12″ and I don’t think that they pay you. I guess I don’t know the date but I know we started it right around Christmas.
TR: So how do you keep track of what these entities pay you? Do you get a statement from them?
JM: Which entities are you talking about?
TR: All these entities. Canvas People, Amazon, Briar Claire, Mini Boden, Myron Shoes . . .
JM: I don’t keep track of those individually. Those go to the lump sort of Amazon main deals, and then I get—I guess I assume I’ll get like a 1099 from them or something.
TR: Okay, so you could provide me with a statement from Amazon _____ deals from all your 2011 activity, to the extent that it exists, right?
JM: Yes; yep. Yeah, even if I hadn’t been paid on it, at least we could see how much is—I don’t run that so I don’t keep track of it very well.
TR: Do you have the ability to go online and look?
JM: Yes I do.
TR: I won’t ask for it now because there’s somebody present, but I may ask for the access to that account as we did with the Google AdSense.
JM: Sure, yep, I’m comfortable with that.
TR: Alright, so you recognize these names—Briar Claire, Mini Boden, Myron Shoes?
JM: Um, Briar Claire and those other ones, those are personal, a personal company by a girl I know that sells hair clips, and she has advertised with me by paying me money to advertise on my blog in the more direct way. That is not an affiliate. Mini Boden, I don’t get money from them.
TR: So you get paid by Briar Claire to advertise on your–
JM: To put their ads, square ad, on the side of my blog.
TR: Okay, so how long have you been doing that?
JM: Oh I’ve always been doing that for years; that’s how I first started making money on my blog.
TR: So when you filed your bankruptcy how many of these ads did you have up that you were getting paid for?
JM: Well by this point sir, I hadn’t had any up because then I had a relationship with BlogHer and Say and now Google Ads, so I stopped—I haven’t done Briar Claire in quite a long time. Does that . . ?
TR: So you filed bankruptcy, you’re still doing Google AdSense, right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: So you suddenly start doing all these other ads, too? Right after you filed bankruptcy?
JM: No I’m not doing them anymore.
TR: Okay. Why’d you stop?
JM: Because I had got a relationship with the bigger ad networks that were more lucrative than small people’s ads, always kind of having those up. I still do them from time to time, like twice a year to promote, like, my readers’ Etsy sites, their small business, ’cause they—so I sometimes do that. But for the most part my income is from my ad network, straight up.
TR: Let’s talk about your Google AdSense account. I’ve looked at that and there’s page views and clicks and things of that nature.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Why is it that for the month of December there’s less than, at the very most, 35 page clicks on any one day.
JM: Because I believe in December I had switched from Google AdSense to Burst, my fourth or so ad network, hoping they would be more lucrative for me, so I shut off my Google Ads and they only fill when Burst runs out, so maybe by the end of each day Burst has shown as much as they’re allowed to and then it will automatically go to Google.
TR: So then why on, say, February 1st, for example, you went to 24,354 clicks on Google AdSense?
JM: Because Burst, after staying with them for about a month and a half, I only made like $700, when I had been making like $1,500 or so with Google Ads, so I decided to turn those off and go back to Google. It’s kind of a balance of finding how I can get paid the most.
TR: So why did you switch to Burst? What did they offer you to move with them?
JM: Um, no one offers you anything in this industry, any certain promise. They can sort of say “we have a lot of good relationships, blah, blah, blah.” I had a friend in the industry who recommended them and said he thought they could be good for my page views, so I just thought I would try, and they didn’t promise me anything except to fill my blog as best they could. It just wasn’t as good as Google so I went back.
TR: So when did you switch to Burst?
JM: I don’t remember exactly but I’m assuming if you saw that in December, maybe it was December? I can look it up.
TR: I remember going farther back in your logs and seeing like in June or July that your Google went down to less than 30 clicks.
JM: Right. That was probably, sir, when I switched to Say. We talked a lot about Say last time. I was with them and they were quite lucrative for me until I was no longer able to be with them.
TR: Why weren’t you able to stay with Say anymore?
JM: They were the ones that BlogFrog worked with and BlogFrog itself decided that it wasn’t lucrative enough for them to stay with, so they couldn’t serve it to me any longer.
Okay, I was with Say through November, had Google Ads up for a little bit in the interim, added Burst in the middle of December, and then took them down again relatively recently and put Google back up.
TR: Did you switch providers in anticipation of filing your Chapter 7 bankruptcy?
JM: No, not at all. I’ve been trying to make the most money I can to not have to file, but now I’m just trying to make the most money I can to support our family.
[END SEGMENT 1, 31:02]
TR: Let’s talk about some of your checks that you wrote. This is from _____ February 4th _____ – donation to a friend’s international adoption on February 1st, $1,000. Who’s that to? {31:24}
JM: Our friends Mark and Ann Durand. They’re from the Buffalo / Monticello area.
TR: And you transferred to GNHI, humanitarian organization to Africa, $1,000?
JM: Yes.
TR: You didn’t list that in your bankruptcy schedules under transfers. Why didn’t you?
JM: Under transfers?
TR: Yes. It asks you if you did transfers of any assets.
JM: Okay. I guess I thought of it more as charitable giving and not—didn’t think of it as a transfer. Sorry I didn’t put it in the right spot.
TR: On February 14th you wrote a check to Chrysler Financial for $1,000. What car is that for?
JM: I’m not sure because—what date was it?
TR: February 14th.
JM: This year?
TR: 2011.
JM: Oh. I guess it could have been your truck or it could have been the Tucson.
IM: You wrote the check?
JM: Apparently, but last February, he’s saying.
IM: Oh, last February.
JM: Well that’s when your truck got taken, when I was in Africa last February. Did we pay them right before that?
IM: I have no idea.
JM: I don’t know. It was probably for the car that we now have paid off, the Tucson.
IM: That would be my guess.
JM: That would be my guess, but his truck was also through Chrysler Financial.
IM: It doesn’t seem likely that we would pay . . .
JM: Well no, no.
IM: . . . just before it got possessed.
JM: That doesn’t make any sense. It had to have been the Hyundai Tucson.
IM: 2005 Tucson.
TR: You’re saying that’s paid off?
JM: Yes.
TR: There’s a check on March 28th for $2,500 to Howard Johnson. It says payment for rental RV. Which RV is that?
JM: The one that we rented from our neighbor.
TR: You paid him $2,500?
JM: Yep.
TR: Is that everything you paid him?
JM: No. Did we have to pay him a little more when we, like, dinged things up and we had to pay for the—to get it fixed and cleaned? Remember when you went over there and, like, paid her for mowing our lawn and, like, he had to get it taken in . . ?
IM: I don’t recall.
JM: You know what I mean, don’t you?
IM: I do.
JM: We paid, like, a hundred bucks to get the carpet cleaned. We paid a couple other hundred because we scratched it and clean the carpet, and one of our kids colored on the carpet.
TR: Okay that was March 28th.
JM: Okay.
TR: Now didn’t you say you bought the new RV—was that in March? Right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Then, according to your list here, you paid Howard Johnson another $2,500 on May 19th. So you paid him a total of $5,000?
JM: No. Mm-umm.
TR: That’s what _____ says.
JM: Really?
IM: I think that is what we paid him because renting it would have been, like, $5,800.
JM: You’re right, we paid him before we left and we paid the other half when we got home.
IM: Yep.
JM: Wow, yeah. A lot to rent it.
TR: What kind of RV is that?
IM: Class A, 35 foot.
TR: Is that a self propelled?
IM: Yes.
TR: So now you’re saying you paid him a total of $5,000?
IM: That’s right.
TR: Did you tow any trailers behind that RV? Any vehicles?
IM: Yes.
TR: What’d you tow behind it?
IM: Um, a relic.
TR: A what?
IM: An 8 foot, like an 11 foot camper—I don’t know how to describe it. Two wheels, it’s from the ’50s, maybe?
TR: You still have it?
IM: No.
TR: Where is it?
IM: It is owned by, uh, a fellow I work with.
TR: Did you sell it to him?
IM: I did.
TR: When?
IM: Last week.
TR: What year is it? ’50s relic? How much did you sell it for?
IM: $400.
TR: Sold it last week?
IM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Did you list that in your bankruptcy schedules?
IM: I’m not sure.
TR: Do you want to look at your schedules and see?
IM: I do.
TR: Let’s see here, Schedule B.
JM: We might have called it the icehouse. I think we listed something in there called that.
TR: Do you see that? Cash on hand, bank statements—do you see all those?
IM: All these things? I see them.
TR: Okay. Household goods, appliances . . . do you see it there?
IM: I don’t see it here.
TR: Now we’re looking at 25: automobiles, trucks, trailers, etc. We see the 2005 GMC, 1990 Metro and 2005 Hyundai listed. Do you see anything else?
IM: No I don’t.
TR: Okay. And there’s some animals listed, right?
IM: Right.
TR: There’s the last page of Schedule B. Do you see number 35: nothing listed there, correct?
IM: Correct.
TR: Okay, so it’s not listed. Do you see it?
IM: I don’t see it on there, no.
TR: Why didn’t you list it?
IM: Um, must have been a mistake on mine.
TR: What kind of trailer is it?
IM: I couldn’t tell you the manufacturer or the year.
TR: Is it a cargo trailer or a camper trailer?
IM: It’s an enclosed, uh, 11 foot, uh, travel trailer that at one time probably had a bed and a stove in it. It was converted into an icehouse, I bought it as an icehouse.
TR: When did you buy it?
IM: I bought it in, um . . . I think that I bought it in Spring of 2010.
TR: What did you pay for it?
IM: $900.
TR: Did you license it?
IM: Uh, no, I believe it has a permanent license.
TR: In your name?
IM: Um, it didn’t come with a title and I didn’t ever title it.
TR: What did you haul in the trailer that you towed it along?
IM: On the trip?
TR: Correct.
IM: Um . . .
JM: Kids bikes.
IM: Kids bikes.
JM: Extra luggage.
IM: Extra luggage.
TR: Alright. I’m looking at again your bankruptcy schedules. It says on 8/22/2011 you paid your attorney $1,000 in attorney’s fees, a credit report, $306 to the bankruptcy court, which is the filing fee. Do you recall that?
IM: Do I recall that?
TR: It says that. Is it accurate? Do you see that? Number 9, Statement of Financial Affairs—see number 9 there?
IM: Okay.
TR: It says that on 8/22 you paid Mrs. Wisecup’s office.
IM: I . . . I mean, I would assume that that’s right. My wife writes the checks, so if it says it I imagine that it’s true, but do I recall it? No.
TR: According to your list here on 8/26, which is four days after you hired your attorney to file bankruptcy, there’s a payment, according to your notes, to Central Bank for $6,248.52. Right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: So what are you paying Central Bank over $6,000 for, four days after you hired an attorney to file bankruptcy?
IM: Two months of mortgage.
TR: Why are you paying the mortgage when you know you’re going to file bankruptcy?
JM: Because we weren’t planning on leaving our house.
TR: How many months behind were you?
JM: Just like half a month. _____ they had the money. I remember saying “well I’ll pay this and I’ll go ahead and pay next month so I don’t have to worry about . . . ”
TR: Okay so that was 8/26. When did you actually leave the house? When did you start–
JM: September.
TR: So a week later you’re renting from Mr. Hxxxxxx?
JM: Yep.
TR: So if you’re current on your mortgage . . .
IM: Well, a couple of weeks.
JM: A couple of weeks. Because that was right when I lost Say. Right? And we were pretty struggling to meet . . .
IM: Yeah, our income went from . . .
JM: Our income went from thousands of dollars a month to unknown, maybe $1,000, and we decided we were going to rent the house . . .
TR: But you were current on your house payment _____? {40:18}
JM: Yes we were; mm-hmm.
IM: But within 30 days we wouldn’t be, sir, with a family of five dependents.
JM: Right. We didn’t want to stay in a house we couldn’t pay for.
TR: On 8/31 you say you wrote a check out for septic tank pumping, $175. Which property is that?
IM: What’s the date again?
TR: August 31st.
JM: We had the septic tank pumped at Becker.
IM: It would have been the Becker property, the one that Central Bank mortgage payment was made to that you just mentioned.
TR: So—and then on September 7th there’s a check to Steve Hxxxxxx for rent for $550, alright—okay? So one week before you were paying Mr. Hxxxxxx rent you’re paying the mortgage and you’re pumping out the septic tank of the house you’re living in.
JM: It was still our responsibility, you know, so we were still taking care of it.
TR: What’s this Nxxxx Lxx Bxxxx gift for $300 from October 3rd. Who is that? Is that your _____? {41:19}
IM: That’s my mom.
TR: Do you see on the Statement of Affairs it asks for gifts, number 7? List all gifts to family members.
IM: Uh yes, I see that and that would have been a mistake of mine. I thought that we had gone over that in our previous meeting. We didn’t.
JM: I think we had said _________ [background noise].
IM: No we had mentioned except for my mom and I said that I had made a check for—and I thought it was like $500 but it turns out it was $300.
TR: What’s Seth Lien get paid $500 for on November 14th?
IM: What’s the name?
TR: Seth Lien, S-e-t-h L-i-e-n.
IM: I don’t know that person.
JM: How much?
TR: $500
JM: That sounds really familiar.
TR: November 14th, about one month before you filed bankruptcy.
IM: I don’t know.
TR: Did you buy something from him?
IM: I’ve never heard of that name before.
JM: I think I wrote the check, I can even visualize it, and I don’t remember what that was. Do we have something with the sound system at home? No. I do not remember what that was.
TR: Alright. Who’s getting paid from New Media Consultants in December 2011? Is that you, ma’am?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: What’s that for?
JM: That’s just more blog income—ads on my blog.
TR: So you got paid $500 at that point in time. When was that money earned?
JM: When did I get that paycheck?
TR: December 23rd.
JM: December 23rd. You know what that was? That was probably my very first payment from the Amazon affiliates that we started in the middle of December sometime. Possibly, very certainly, I probably had funds coming, I just didn’t know how much they were yet, and I should have listed those, and then when those paid out they paid me, so that should have been listed as accounts receivable, I guess that’s called.
TR: So even though it doesn’t say Amazon it’s from Amazon?
JM: It is. Those are the deals gals that manage it for me.
TR: What does that mean?
JM: Um, I don’t take care of putting the Amazon links on my blog and looking for deals.
TR: Who does?
JM: A friend of mine.
TR: Who’s that?
JM: Alli Worthington.
TR: Is she an employee of yours?
JM: No.
TR: She’s not the person that you claim you pay every month to—
JM: No.
TR: And who does she work for?
JM: Herself.
TR: And she obtains ads for your blog?
JM: No, she manages the affiliate links on the deals page.
TR: What’s her telephone number?
JM: Um . . .
PW: Can I ask again what that amount was?
TR: $500 paid on December 23rd, 2011.
JM: I don’t have her number. I used to on my old phone but we just e-mail.
TR: What’s her e-mail address?
JM: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.com
TR: @xxxxx?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay from September 1st, 2011 through October 17th, 2011 you again claim or have very few clicks on your pages, and you’re saying that’s because that’s when you were with—was it Burst or Say?
JM: Um, that I don’t remember. Let me see if we wrote that down. From when to when, sir?
IM: September 1st to October.
TR: My page here starts September 1st and goes continuously through October 18th.
JM: Yep, I was with Say at that point.
TR: So on October 18th you went from—well there’s 19,000 October 18th, there’s 25 clicks on October 17th.
JM: That could very well be when I added it.
TR: I looked at your Google AdSense account.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: You had $2,060.16 owed at the end of November, not paid until December 23rd. So you issued a check to yourself on November 23rd? I know you don’t have that documentation with you, but you only listed, I think, $1,500 for accounts receivable in your bankruptcy schedules. Do you recall that?
JM: I do.
TR: And yet you had over $2,000 just owed to you by Google AdSense. Do you recall that?
JM: Yes. Well I do now. I usually get about 15 whenever I have them for a full month, so I think I was assuming that’s how much I had. I should have just checked to see.
TR: You didn’t bother checking your AdSense balance?
JM: Gosh, I guess I must not have. Or maybe that month hadn’t finished? I don’t know.
What were the dates of that again? That I had earned that?
IM: September 1st through October 18th.
JM: No, no, the one he just said, of the . . .
TR: November. Balance at the end of November. Let me show you a printout of that amount. Do you see where it says balance at the end of November?
JM: Yes.
TR: $2,060 and some cents?
JM: Yep
TR: You can cash that out any point in time after that, can’t you?
JM: Yeah. I can’t get the money instantly but I can’t have the money, start working on—
TR: Well how long does it take, a day?
JM: No, no, it takes a month. Usually you don’t get it ’til a month after the month ends. But yes I could have looked and seen how much I would have coming the next month and I apparently didn’t and rounded to 15, instead of writing 2,000.
TR: Where does it say that you can’t cash that _____ in? {48:59}
JM: Um, it doesn’t say anywhere, that’s just—I mean on the website, I suppose. It’s not like you can just . . .
IM: That’s their payment schedule.
JM: That’s their payment schedule, yeah. You get paid after a month after that month ends.
TR: So in December of 2000 [sic] I’ve got a report here from Burst Media, December of 2011, that shows income of $824.26.
JM: Yes sir.
TR: And just for my recollection, you started Burst again when?
JM: I started Burst mid-December.
TR: Okay. From Google AdSense?
JM: Exactly.
TR: Okay. So then that mid-December, half a month you made $824 from Burst, right?
JM: Was it just half a month? I thought that I made about 700-800 after I had been with them for a whole month.
TR: Let me show you this chart. It looks like you also were with them November of 2011.
JM: For, I think, a day, so maybe I . . . okay, okay, you know what? This isn’t right, then. I remember this. I was at the very end of the month, maybe one day. I made $30 because once I joined them I stayed, so then all of December I made $824.26. That led me to decide it wasn’t worth staying with them.
TR: So then you had some income that you’d earned from Burst at the time you filed bankruptcy also?
JM: I guess, yes. I would have had 13 days, so maybe $300-some.
TR: So you have the Burst income, you’ve got the Google AdSense, you have the media consultants, you have the PayPal account. You don’t list any of those things in your bankruptcy schedules, right?
JM: I didn’t separate them out and I didn’t list as much as I had coming in, no.
TR: Well you have a PayPal account, a bank account, with money in it, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Money that you can put in and take out?
JM: Right, but everything from the PayPal goes right to my bank account, so I didn’t list it because it’s not—it’s effectively just a door into my bank account. For the money on here I listed, it would have been from my bank account.
TR: That’s not what the question asked. The question asked you to list all bank accounts, doesn’t it?
JM: Yeah, I didn’t list my PayPal account. I didn’t think of it as a bank account. I’m sorry.
TR: Alright. Your attorney, I think, forwarded this e-mail to me. It’s dated January 27th—’breakdown of what I made in 2011, what I spent and paid in taxes.’ For example in January 2011 you had income of $22,132 and you think you paid Federal taxes of $7,303. Did you actually pay those taxes to the Federal authorities?
JM: We have paid . . . those taxes from that month? It’s impossible to say if those taxes were paid.
TR: Well how much have you paid to the IRS during 2011? $1,000? $10,000? $20,000?
JM: Many, many, many thousands but we were behind in our taxes so they put it . . .
IM: Towards the oldest first.
TR: No, no. In 2011 what did you pay to the IRS? It doesn’t get any easier than that.
JM: I don’t know. Lots.
TR: Okay. What bank account did it come out of?
JM: Our same one, our Wells Fargo.
TR: Which account?
JM: Probably the Jennifer McKinney Photography one.
TR: Okay. Have you done your 2011 taxes yet?
JM: No.
TR: So then it should show up on these checks that I asked you for. We just went through those things.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: There should be payments to the IRS, right?
JM: I’m on a payment schedule with them.
TR: Okay. When did you start that?
JM: Quite a long time ago, maybe two years. We pay them $1,000 a month and then remember, honey, when we were on our RV trip?
IM: Yes.
JM: I made you call them back up for me?
IM: Right.
JM: And they said that based on how much we owed, they put us on a $100 a month.
IM: Okay.
JM: So that is currently all that we’re paying them for the back, and they’ve lumped our taxes into that.
TR: Alright, so then what you put on this e-mail that January you paid Federal taxes of $7,300, February Federal taxes of $2,181, that’s not accurate, is it?
JM: Well . . .
IM: Well you were making big chunk payments, uh . . .
JM: Right, I was . . . yes.
IM: At certain times.
JM: I was paying during the beginning of 2011 when I was making all the money, I probably paid that plus more.
IM: But that wasn’t for January’s 2011′s taxes, that was for back taxes.
JM: 2005 and 2006 from when he had his business.
TR: So what did you pay for 2011 income taxes?
IM: I don’t think any.
TR: Okay.
IM: I don’t think we paid the IRS for 2011 income taxes.
JM: Yeah, we were paying during . . .
IM: All the money that we paid would be going to our old taxes.
TR: Okay. Now I noticed that that Schedule—list of business expenses for January, that hasn’t been filed yet? Are you going to file it?
PW: I haven’t amended it yet, no.
TR: Okay.
PW: But I’m making my list of everything so we can get it all amended at once.
IM: Look, I think you just got a smile out of him.
PW: I know. No sense amending four times when I can do it once.
TR: Alright. I’ve seen some of your PayPal activity. On December 14th you got a payment from Brown & Associates Investigations for $50. What was that for?
JM: Oh that was someone who took—for how much was it for?
TR: $50.
JM: That was someone who took one of my photography classes and that’s actually her husband’s business, so I remember her e-mailing me, like, “you’re getting some money from an investigator” on my class.
TR: So all these other payments, _____, _____, other individuals December 8th, 9th, etc, $50, $40, those are all for the photography business?
JM: Yes sir.
TR: So you had all this money sitting in your PayPal account then before you filed bankruptcy, right?
JM: I guess so.
TR: Alright, here’s some bank transactions. This is the Wells Fargo account, this is the photography account. On 11/4/2011 you deposited in a branch store $3,497.23. Do you know what that’s from? That’s a little over a month before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: For 2,000?
TR: 2011.
JM: Dollars? I can look it up.
TR: $3,497.
JM: $3,400. Could you tell me that date one more time?
TR: November 4th.
JM: I’m guessing it was for Say Media, but . . . $3,000?
TR: $497.22
JM: [shuffling papers]
Well it must have been a combined, a couple of checks combined because I’m not seeing one for exactly that amount, but . . .
TR: How many deposits do you have on November 4th? It looks like two deposits, one for $365 that’s from PayPal and then this deposit made in the branch store.
JM: Here’s one on the 6th but it’s for even more . . . how many deposits on which day, sir?
TR: November 4th, one for $365, one for $3,497
JM: Into which account did that go into?
TR: Your photography account, #9246.
JM: It’s supposed to be every single check that I deposited.
PW: Oh, these are 7469; these are the other account. This is the wrong account. You’re looking for 9246.
JM: Okay.
PW: I’m not seeing 9246.
JM: Then they didn’t print them. But I would feel certain that has to be—I just put my Say check into that but sir, I don’t know for sure.
TR: Okay well then last time we talked there was a check deposited on December 6, 2011, $6.087.81. You told me that was the last Say check. So you made $9,000 from Say in the roughly two month period of time before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: Probably not. Could you tell me those two dates and amounts again?
TR: December 6, 2011, $6,087.81 and on 11/4/2011, $3,497.23.
JM: I’m certain that the November one must have been Say and then the December one was probably Say, plus I probably got something else and it probably—another $3,000? It won’t be in there because that’s not it.
PW: Those numbers aren’t there.
TR: What other income did you have coming in from other entities?
JM: My dad gave us a whole bunch of money but that was at Christmas.
TR: From where?
JM: At Christmas. My dad, but that wouldn’t have been . . .
TR: I only saw your dad putting money in your PayPal account though, right?
JM: A couple of times. When he gives me money that’s sometimes where he puts it. That’s more recently.
TR: So he’s writing you checks in addition to PayPal?
JM: Christmas check; he gave us a Christmas check.
TR: You filed bankruptcy on December 12th.
JM: So I had just put $6,800 a few days earlier. Okay, well I guess I just . . .
TR: You don’t know where that money came from?
JM: Well not exactly. Probably it was a Say check and then a bunch of other.
TR: What records would you have to have to look at?
JM: I would probably have to get, just like I did with these, get the copy of the checks that I deposited, so that I would know what it was.
TR: Have you set up a meeting yet with your accountant yet for tax purposes?
JM: No. We don’t have anything scheduled.
TR: Do you plan on filing your 2011 taxes in a timely fashion?
JM: Yes I do.
TR: Let’s talk about some of your checks that you wrote. This is from _____ February 4th _____ – donation to a friend’s international adoption on February 1st, $1,000. Who’s that to? {31:24}
JM: Our friends Mark and Ann Durand. They’re from the Buffalo / Monticello area.
TR: And you transferred to GNHI, humanitarian organization to Africa, $1,000?
JM: Yes.
TR: You didn’t list that in your bankruptcy schedules under transfers. Why didn’t you?
JM: Under transfers?
TR: Yes. It asks you if you did transfers of any assets.
JM: Okay. I guess I thought of it more as charitable giving and not—didn’t think of it as a transfer. Sorry I didn’t put it in the right spot.
TR: On February 14th you wrote a check to Chrysler Financial for $1,000. What car is that for?
JM: I’m not sure because—what date was it?
TR: February 14th.
JM: This year?
TR: 2011.
JM: Oh. I guess it could have been your truck or it could have been the Tucson.
IM: You wrote the check?
JM: Apparently, but last February, he’s saying.
IM: Oh, last February.
JM: Well that’s when your truck got taken, when I was in Africa last February. Did we pay them right before that?
IM: I have no idea.
JM: I don’t know. It was probably for the car that we now have paid off, the Tucson.
IM: That would be my guess.
JM: That would be my guess, but his truck was also through Chrysler Financial.
IM: It doesn’t seem likely that we would pay . . .
JM: Well no, no.
IM: . . . just before it got possessed.
JM: That doesn’t make any sense. It had to have been the Hyundai Tucson.
IM: 2005 Tucson.
TR: You’re saying that’s paid off?
JM: Yes.
TR: There’s a check on March 28th for $2,500 to Howard Johnson. It says payment for rental RV. Which RV is that?
JM: The one that we rented from our neighbor.
TR: You paid him $2,500?
JM: Yep.
TR: Is that everything you paid him?
JM: No. Did we have to pay him a little more when we, like, dinged things up and we had to pay for the—to get it fixed and cleaned? Remember when you went over there and, like, paid her for mowing our lawn and, like, he had to get it taken in . . ?
IM: I don’t recall.
JM: You know what I mean, don’t you?
IM: I do.
JM: We paid, like, a hundred bucks to get the carpet cleaned. We paid a couple other hundred because we scratched it and clean the carpet, and one of our kids colored on the carpet.
TR: Okay that was March 28th.
JM: Okay.
TR: Now didn’t you say you bought the new RV—was that in March? Right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Then, according to your list here, you paid Howard Johnson another $2,500 on May 19th. So you paid him a total of $5,000?
JM: No. Mm-umm.
TR: That’s what _____ says.
JM: Really?
IM: I think that is what we paid him because renting it would have been, like, $5,800.
JM: You’re right, we paid him before we left and we paid the other half when we got home.
IM: Yep.
JM: Wow, yeah. A lot to rent it.
TR: What kind of RV is that?
IM: Class A, 35 foot.
TR: Is that a self propelled?
IM: Yes.
TR: So now you’re saying you paid him a total of $5,000?
IM: That’s right.
TR: Did you tow any trailers behind that RV? Any vehicles?
IM: Yes.
TR: What’d you tow behind it?
IM: Um, a relic.
TR: A what?
IM: An 8 foot, like an 11 foot camper—I don’t know how to describe it. Two wheels, it’s from the ’50s, maybe?
TR: You still have it?
IM: No.
TR: Where is it?
IM: It is owned by, uh, a fellow I work with.
TR: Did you sell it to him?
IM: I did.
TR: When?
IM: Last week.
TR: What year is it? ’50s relic? How much did you sell it for?
IM: $400.
TR: Sold it last week?
IM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Did you list that in your bankruptcy schedules?
IM: I’m not sure.
TR: Do you want to look at your schedules and see?
IM: I do.
TR: Let’s see here, Schedule B.
JM: We might have called it the icehouse. I think we listed something in there called that.
TR: Do you see that? Cash on hand, bank statements—do you see all those?
IM: All these things? I see them.
TR: Okay. Household goods, appliances . . . do you see it there?
IM: I don’t see it here.
TR: Now we’re looking at 25: automobiles, trucks, trailers, etc. We see the 2005 GMC, 1990 Metro and 2005 Hyundai listed. Do you see anything else?
IM: No I don’t.
TR: Okay. And there’s some animals listed, right?
IM: Right.
TR: There’s the last page of Schedule B. Do you see number 35: nothing listed there, correct?
IM: Correct.
TR: Okay, so it’s not listed. Do you see it?
IM: I don’t see it on there, no.
TR: Why didn’t you list it?
IM: Um, must have been a mistake on mine.
TR: What kind of trailer is it?
IM: I couldn’t tell you the manufacturer or the year.
TR: Is it a cargo trailer or a camper trailer?
IM: It’s an enclosed, uh, 11 foot, uh, travel trailer that at one time probably had a bed and a stove in it. It was converted into an icehouse, I bought it as an icehouse.
TR: When did you buy it?
IM: I bought it in, um . . . I think that I bought it in Spring of 2010.
TR: What did you pay for it?
IM: $900.
TR: Did you license it?
IM: Uh, no, I believe it has a permanent license.
TR: In your name?
IM: Um, it didn’t come with a title and I didn’t ever title it.
TR: What did you haul in the trailer that you towed it along?
IM: On the trip?
TR: Correct.
IM: Um . . .
JM: Kids bikes.
IM: Kids bikes.
JM: Extra luggage.
IM: Extra luggage.
TR: Alright. I’m looking at again your bankruptcy schedules. It says on 8/22/2011 you paid your attorney $1,000 in attorney’s fees, a credit report, $306 to the bankruptcy court, which is the filing fee. Do you recall that?
IM: Do I recall that?
TR: It says that. Is it accurate? Do you see that? Number 9, Statement of Financial Affairs—see number 9 there?
IM: Okay.
TR: It says that on 8/22 you paid Mrs. Wisecup’s office.
IM: I . . . I mean, I would assume that that’s right. My wife writes the checks, so if it says it I imagine that it’s true, but do I recall it? No.
TR: According to your list here on 8/26, which is four days after you hired your attorney to file bankruptcy, there’s a payment, according to your notes, to Central Bank for $6,248.52. Right?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: So what are you paying Central Bank over $6,000 for, four days after you hired an attorney to file bankruptcy?
IM: Two months of mortgage.
TR: Why are you paying the mortgage when you know you’re going to file bankruptcy?
JM: Because we weren’t planning on leaving our house.
TR: How many months behind were you?
JM: Just like half a month. _____ they had the money. I remember saying “well I’ll pay this and I’ll go ahead and pay next month so I don’t have to worry about . . . ”
TR: Okay so that was 8/26. When did you actually leave the house? When did you start–
JM: September.
TR: So a week later you’re renting from Mr. Hxxxxxx?
JM: Yep.
TR: So if you’re current on your mortgage . . .
IM: Well, a couple of weeks.
JM: A couple of weeks. Because that was right when I lost Say. Right? And we were pretty struggling to meet . . .
IM: Yeah, our income went from . . .
JM: Our income went from thousands of dollars a month to unknown, maybe $1,000, and we decided we were going to rent the house . . .
TR: But you were current on your house payment _____? {40:18}
JM: Yes we were; mm-hmm.
IM: But within 30 days we wouldn’t be, sir, with a family of five dependents.
JM: Right. We didn’t want to stay in a house we couldn’t pay for.
TR: On 8/31 you say you wrote a check out for septic tank pumping, $175. Which property is that?
IM: What’s the date again?
TR: August 31st.
JM: We had the septic tank pumped at Becker.
IM: It would have been the Becker property, the one that Central Bank mortgage payment was made to that you just mentioned.
TR: So—and then on September 7th there’s a check to Steve Hxxxxxx for rent for $550, alright—okay? So one week before you were paying Mr. Hxxxxxx rent you’re paying the mortgage and you’re pumping out the septic tank of the house you’re living in.
JM: It was still our responsibility, you know, so we were still taking care of it.
TR: What’s this Nxxxx Lxx Bxxxx gift for $300 from October 3rd. Who is that? Is that your _____? {41:19}
IM: That’s my mom.
TR: Do you see on the Statement of Affairs it asks for gifts, number 7? List all gifts to family members.
IM: Uh yes, I see that and that would have been a mistake of mine. I thought that we had gone over that in our previous meeting. We didn’t.
JM: I think we had said _________ [background noise].
IM: No we had mentioned except for my mom and I said that I had made a check for—and I thought it was like $500 but it turns out it was $300.
TR: What’s Seth Lien get paid $500 for on November 14th?
IM: What’s the name?
TR: Seth Lien, S-e-t-h L-i-e-n.
IM: I don’t know that person.
JM: How much?
TR: $500
JM: That sounds really familiar.
TR: November 14th, about one month before you filed bankruptcy.
IM: I don’t know.
TR: Did you buy something from him?
IM: I’ve never heard of that name before.
JM: I think I wrote the check, I can even visualize it, and I don’t remember what that was. Do we have something with the sound system at home? No. I do not remember what that was.
TR: Alright. Who’s getting paid from New Media Consultants in December 2011? Is that you, ma’am?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: What’s that for?
JM: That’s just more blog income—ads on my blog.
TR: So you got paid $500 at that point in time. When was that money earned?
JM: When did I get that paycheck?
TR: December 23rd.
JM: December 23rd. You know what that was? That was probably my very first payment from the Amazon affiliates that we started in the middle of December sometime. Possibly, very certainly, I probably had funds coming, I just didn’t know how much they were yet, and I should have listed those, and then when those paid out they paid me, so that should have been listed as accounts receivable, I guess that’s called.
TR: So even though it doesn’t say Amazon it’s from Amazon?
JM: It is. Those are the deals gals that manage it for me.
TR: What does that mean?
JM: Um, I don’t take care of putting the Amazon links on my blog and looking for deals.
TR: Who does?
JM: A friend of mine.
TR: Who’s that?
JM: Alli Worthington.
TR: Is she an employee of yours?
JM: No.
TR: She’s not the person that you claim you pay every month to—
JM: No.
TR: And who does she work for?
JM: Herself.
TR: And she obtains ads for your blog?
JM: No, she manages the affiliate links on the deals page.
TR: What’s her telephone number?
JM: Um . . .
PW: Can I ask again what that amount was?
TR: $500 paid on December 23rd, 2011.
JM: I don’t have her number. I used to on my old phone but we just e-mail.
TR: What’s her e-mail address?
JM: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxx.com
TR: @xxxxx?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay from September 1st, 2011 through October 17th, 2011 you again claim or have very few clicks on your pages, and you’re saying that’s because that’s when you were with—was it Burst or Say?
JM: Um, that I don’t remember. Let me see if we wrote that down. From when to when, sir?
IM: September 1st to October.
TR: My page here starts September 1st and goes continuously through October 18th.
JM: Yep, I was with Say at that point.
TR: So on October 18th you went from—well there’s 19,000 October 18th, there’s 25 clicks on October 17th.
JM: That could very well be when I added it.
TR: I looked at your Google AdSense account.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: You had $2,060.16 owed at the end of November, not paid until December 23rd. So you issued a check to yourself on November 23rd? I know you don’t have that documentation with you, but you only listed, I think, $1,500 for accounts receivable in your bankruptcy schedules. Do you recall that?
JM: I do.
TR: And yet you had over $2,000 just owed to you by Google AdSense. Do you recall that?
JM: Yes. Well I do now. I usually get about 15 whenever I have them for a full month, so I think I was assuming that’s how much I had. I should have just checked to see.
TR: You didn’t bother checking your AdSense balance?
JM: Gosh, I guess I must not have. Or maybe that month hadn’t finished? I don’t know.
What were the dates of that again? That I had earned that?
IM: September 1st through October 18th.
JM: No, no, the one he just said, of the . . .
TR: November. Balance at the end of November. Let me show you a printout of that amount. Do you see where it says balance at the end of November?
JM: Yes.
TR: $2,060 and some cents?
JM: Yep
TR: You can cash that out any point in time after that, can’t you?
JM: Yeah. I can’t get the money instantly but I can’t have the money, start working on—
TR: Well how long does it take, a day?
JM: No, no, it takes a month. Usually you don’t get it ’til a month after the month ends. But yes I could have looked and seen how much I would have coming the next month and I apparently didn’t and rounded to 15, instead of writing 2,000.
TR: Where does it say that you can’t cash that _____ in? {48:59}
JM: Um, it doesn’t say anywhere, that’s just—I mean on the website, I suppose. It’s not like you can just . . .
IM: That’s their payment schedule.
JM: That’s their payment schedule, yeah. You get paid after a month after that month ends.
TR: So in December of 2000 [sic] I’ve got a report here from Burst Media, December of 2011, that shows income of $824.26.
JM: Yes sir.
TR: And just for my recollection, you started Burst again when?
JM: I started Burst mid-December.
TR: Okay. From Google AdSense?
JM: Exactly.
TR: Okay. So then that mid-December, half a month you made $824 from Burst, right?
JM: Was it just half a month? I thought that I made about 700-800 after I had been with them for a whole month.
TR: Let me show you this chart. It looks like you also were with them November of 2011.
JM: For, I think, a day, so maybe I . . . okay, okay, you know what? This isn’t right, then. I remember this. I was at the very end of the month, maybe one day. I made $30 because once I joined them I stayed, so then all of December I made $824.26. That led me to decide it wasn’t worth staying with them.
TR: So then you had some income that you’d earned from Burst at the time you filed bankruptcy also?
JM: I guess, yes. I would have had 13 days, so maybe $300-some.
TR: So you have the Burst income, you’ve got the Google AdSense, you have the media consultants, you have the PayPal account. You don’t list any of those things in your bankruptcy schedules, right?
JM: I didn’t separate them out and I didn’t list as much as I had coming in, no.
TR: Well you have a PayPal account, a bank account, with money in it, right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Money that you can put in and take out?
JM: Right, but everything from the PayPal goes right to my bank account, so I didn’t list it because it’s not—it’s effectively just a door into my bank account. For the money on here I listed, it would have been from my bank account.
TR: That’s not what the question asked. The question asked you to list all bank accounts, doesn’t it?
JM: Yeah, I didn’t list my PayPal account. I didn’t think of it as a bank account. I’m sorry.
TR: Alright. Your attorney, I think, forwarded this e-mail to me. It’s dated January 27th—’breakdown of what I made in 2011, what I spent and paid in taxes.’ For example in January 2011 you had income of $22,132 and you think you paid Federal taxes of $7,303. Did you actually pay those taxes to the Federal authorities?
JM: We have paid . . . those taxes from that month? It’s impossible to say if those taxes were paid.
TR: Well how much have you paid to the IRS during 2011? $1,000? $10,000? $20,000?
JM: Many, many, many thousands but we were behind in our taxes so they put it . . .
IM: Towards the oldest first.
TR: No, no. In 2011 what did you pay to the IRS? It doesn’t get any easier than that.
JM: I don’t know. Lots.
TR: Okay. What bank account did it come out of?
JM: Our same one, our Wells Fargo.
TR: Which account?
JM: Probably the Jennifer McKinney Photography one.
TR: Okay. Have you done your 2011 taxes yet?
JM: No.
TR: So then it should show up on these checks that I asked you for. We just went through those things.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: There should be payments to the IRS, right?
JM: I’m on a payment schedule with them.
TR: Okay. When did you start that?
JM: Quite a long time ago, maybe two years. We pay them $1,000 a month and then remember, honey, when we were on our RV trip?
IM: Yes.
JM: I made you call them back up for me?
IM: Right.
JM: And they said that based on how much we owed, they put us on a $100 a month.
IM: Okay.
JM: So that is currently all that we’re paying them for the back, and they’ve lumped our taxes into that.
TR: Alright, so then what you put on this e-mail that January you paid Federal taxes of $7,300, February Federal taxes of $2,181, that’s not accurate, is it?
JM: Well . . .
IM: Well you were making big chunk payments, uh . . .
JM: Right, I was . . . yes.
IM: At certain times.
JM: I was paying during the beginning of 2011 when I was making all the money, I probably paid that plus more.
IM: But that wasn’t for January’s 2011′s taxes, that was for back taxes.
JM: 2005 and 2006 from when he had his business.
TR: So what did you pay for 2011 income taxes?
IM: I don’t think any.
TR: Okay.
IM: I don’t think we paid the IRS for 2011 income taxes.
JM: Yeah, we were paying during . . .
IM: All the money that we paid would be going to our old taxes.
TR: Okay. Now I noticed that that Schedule—list of business expenses for January, that hasn’t been filed yet? Are you going to file it?
PW: I haven’t amended it yet, no.
TR: Okay.
PW: But I’m making my list of everything so we can get it all amended at once.
IM: Look, I think you just got a smile out of him.
PW: I know. No sense amending four times when I can do it once.
TR: Alright. I’ve seen some of your PayPal activity. On December 14th you got a payment from Brown & Associates Investigations for $50. What was that for?
JM: Oh that was someone who took—for how much was it for?
TR: $50.
JM: That was someone who took one of my photography classes and that’s actually her husband’s business, so I remember her e-mailing me, like, “you’re getting some money from an investigator” on my class.
TR: So all these other payments, _____, _____, other individuals December 8th, 9th, etc, $50, $40, those are all for the photography business?
JM: Yes sir.
TR: So you had all this money sitting in your PayPal account then before you filed bankruptcy, right?
JM: I guess so.
TR: Alright, here’s some bank transactions. This is the Wells Fargo account, this is the photography account. On 11/4/2011 you deposited in a branch store $3,497.23. Do you know what that’s from? That’s a little over a month before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: For 2,000?
TR: 2011.
JM: Dollars? I can look it up.
TR: $3,497.
JM: $3,400. Could you tell me that date one more time?
TR: November 4th.
JM: I’m guessing it was for Say Media, but . . . $3,000?
TR: $497.22
JM: [shuffling papers]
Well it must have been a combined, a couple of checks combined because I’m not seeing one for exactly that amount, but . . .
TR: How many deposits do you have on November 4th? It looks like two deposits, one for $365 that’s from PayPal and then this deposit made in the branch store.
JM: Here’s one on the 6th but it’s for even more . . . how many deposits on which day, sir?
TR: November 4th, one for $365, one for $3,497
JM: Into which account did that go into?
TR: Your photography account, #9246.
JM: It’s supposed to be every single check that I deposited.
PW: Oh, these are 7469; these are the other account. This is the wrong account. You’re looking for 9246.
JM: Okay.
PW: I’m not seeing 9246.
JM: Then they didn’t print them. But I would feel certain that has to be—I just put my Say check into that but sir, I don’t know for sure.
TR: Okay well then last time we talked there was a check deposited on December 6, 2011, $6.087.81. You told me that was the last Say check. So you made $9,000 from Say in the roughly two month period of time before you filed bankruptcy?
JM: Probably not. Could you tell me those two dates and amounts again?
TR: December 6, 2011, $6,087.81 and on 11/4/2011, $3,497.23.
JM: I’m certain that the November one must have been Say and then the December one was probably Say, plus I probably got something else and it probably—another $3,000? It won’t be in there because that’s not it.
PW: Those numbers aren’t there.
TR: What other income did you have coming in from other entities?
JM: My dad gave us a whole bunch of money but that was at Christmas.
TR: From where?
JM: At Christmas. My dad, but that wouldn’t have been . . .
TR: I only saw your dad putting money in your PayPal account though, right?
JM: A couple of times. When he gives me money that’s sometimes where he puts it. That’s more recently.
TR: So he’s writing you checks in addition to PayPal?
JM: Christmas check; he gave us a Christmas check.
TR: You filed bankruptcy on December 12th.
JM: So I had just put $6,800 a few days earlier. Okay, well I guess I just . . .
TR: You don’t know where that money came from?
JM: Well not exactly. Probably it was a Say check and then a bunch of other.
TR: What records would you have to have to look at?
JM: I would probably have to get, just like I did with these, get the copy of the checks that I deposited, so that I would know what it was.
TR: Have you set up a meeting yet with your accountant yet for tax purposes?
JM: No. We don’t have anything scheduled.
TR: Do you plan on filing your 2011 taxes in a timely fashion?
JM: Yes I do.
[END SEGMENT 2, 1:02:24]
TR: Alright. As I was saying you filed bankruptcy on ____ December 12th. You were in Indianapolis to photograph a wedding on December 28th, right? {1:02:38}
JM: Yep.
TR: So was that something that was booked prior to your bankruptcy filing?
JM: It was a pretty last minute booking. I remember it was pretty last minute. I can’t say for sure, sir.
TR: Did you have money paid to you?
JM: Oh, yep, it must have been because here’s—she’s paying me on the 28th of November, so I must have booked it shortly before this.
TR: Okay. Where’s that deposit?
JM: Into my photography account and that’s in the copy of the check.
TR: November . . .
JM: This is the photography one, isn’t it?
PW: It’s into account # 2242.
TR: This is Jennifer McKinney Photography account # 9246.
PW: This one shows 2242.
JM: They all do?
PW: Not all of them. They’re all different ones.
JM: Different account numbers?
PW: Yeah.
JM: I think it’s supposed to be everything.
TR: Alright, so we have a deposit when for this photoshoot?
PW: You know what, that’s their account number.
JM: Okay.
PW: We do have a deposit for that photoshoot, yes.
TR: What day was that?
PW: 11/28. The check was written 11/28, looks like the processing date was 12/02.
TR: Okay, how much was that?
PW: $900.
TR: Was that the total amount paid for the photoshoot?
JM: No, she paid me some more at the wedding. She was giving me a deposit and then she was paying me for –reimbursing me for the airfare to get there.
TR: How much more did they pay you?
JM: Um, she paid me $800 or $900 again when I got there. I think like 13 or 14 total.
TR: 8 or 900 plus another 900? That would be 1800, wouldn’t it?
JM: Yeah but some of that money was for my plane ticket, so I guess I was talking about payment for the wedding, not just . . .
TR: So you were contracted to do this then at the time you filed bankruptcy.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Did you, uh, travel back to Africa?
JM: I didn’t. I decided not to.
TR: Have you purchased a plane ticket for any future travel _____? {1:04:40}
JM: I have not.
TR: A Million Moms—is that another affiliate program you have?
JM: No, Million Moms is just a name of a certain ad campaign that I did through BlogFrog and it must have just—is it . . .
TR: So you got paid through BlogFrog?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: SendOutCards. What do you do for them?
JM: Oh, well nothing. I’ve never made money from them. I joined a business opportunity and didn’t end up making a penny.
TR: Do you have cards that you have, inventory that you sell?
JM: No.
TR: No?
JM: I’m not active with them at all. I never . . .
TR: I think I saw some place where you paid like $400 or $500 to SendOutCards.
JM: Yep.
TR: What was that for?
JM: To start, to join the business as a distributor.
TR: It was shortly before you filed bankruptcy I think, wasn’t it?
JM: It was before Christmas so it could have been right around that time. I was trying to jump on it at Christmastime.
TR: So you sold those cards?
JM: No.
TR: Have you sold any of them?
JM: No.
PW: Mr. Trustee?
TR: Mm?
PW: I do have two checks deposited somewhere around December 6th.
TR: Okay.
PW: Added together come up to about 6387. I think that’s that number you were looking for there, and they were both from BlogFrog.
TR: Okay, so it’s—it came up to 62, you said?
PW: Uh, 6387.
TR: That sounds right.
PW: Is what I’m looking at, and then there might be, you know, something else that adds to that, maybe there was a third check somewhere.
JM: It would have been another $500 check then, to make 68.
PW: Right, so . . .
TR: Okay, so BlogFrog paid you approximately $6,300 in December of 2011?
JM: Looks like they did.
TR: And maybe we’ve covered this before, but you’ve got Say, you’ve got Burst and you’ve got BlogFrog–
JM: Say and BlogFrog
PW: Are the same.
JM: Were the same.
TR: Okay. So—and you didn’t make . . . and BlogFrog discontinued doing business with you in December?
JM: With Say.
TR: With Say. But they’re still doing business with you now?
JM: Yeah but it’s like I don’t really get anything because they’re not with Say, but technically we’re affiliated.
TR: But you’re with Burst, aren’t you?
JM: Now I’m back with Google.
TR: Okay. You were always with Google though, right?
JM: Nope. When I’m with someone else I’m not with Google at all, except maybe a tiny spillover. It’s . . .
TR: Alright, there’s a December 19th blog where you said you finished paying off your car, even though you hadn’t had the car in years. What car is that?
JM: That’s the Tucson.
TR: You do have your car, don’t you?
JM: My sister drives it.
TR: Did you give it to her?
JM: No. She paid us for it.
TR: This is the 2005 Hyundai.
JM: Yes.
TR: That you list in your schedules.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: When did your sister pay you for it?
JM: When was that? We lived in Mound, so . . . Stellan wasn’t even born yet. 2006, maybe?
IM: 6, 7
TR: So it’s titled in your name or her name?
JM: Mine.
TR: Yet she’s paid you for it. She drives it.
JM: She paid me; not for the whole amount that, you know . . .
TR: How much does she still owe you?
JM: She doesn’t owe me anything.
TR: When did she pay you?
JM: In 2006.
TR: For the whole car.
JM: For as much as we agreed on.
TR: [snort]
JM: I’m not trying to be silly. I didn’t make her pay me the whole amount that I owed.
IM: It is titled in her name.
JM: No, no.
IM: Or his name, her husband’s name.
JM: No, no, it’s titled in our name. It is.
PW: I think we provided the title.
JM: We actually had to go get the title.
PW: Yeah.
IM: Oh.
PW: They _____ transfer.
JM: They’ve never transferred it.
PW: You wondered why it was listed in the schedules.
JM: Well it wasn’t really hers and I still owed on it, but I did decide to . . .
TR: Alright, so the 2005 Hyundai, that’s the car you’ve added $6,554, you sold to her. She paid you something for it,
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: It’s titled still in your name.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Right? But she drives it and she’s been driving it for a couple of years.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Who pays for the insurance?
JM: She does.
TR: And you’re not owed any more money for it. Is that right?
JM: I don’t. I finished paying it off.
TR: Yeah, I think you said you still owed like $700 for it after you filed bankruptcy, right?
JM: Maybe but I wanted to get it paid off since I didn’t want any chance of her car getting—you know what I mean? I wanted to finish paying, so I may have still owed $800 or so, but finished shortly thereafter.
TR: So why would you pay off her car?
JM: So that it could be fully hers. So that we could eventually transfer her the title. So she wouldn’t have to worry about driving a car that her sister, well, was financially responsible for. What—I mean . . .
TR: How much did she pay you for it?
JM: Do you remember? Didn’t they pay us $10,000 for it, at least owed like 16 or something?
IM: It was five years ago; I don’t know.
JM: Yeah. Maybe something like $10,000 and we still owed like $18,000 or something like that. So I just kept paying on it through the years.
TR: Alright. You listed for your expenses, this is _____, June 19th, Administration: $332.14 a month. Who’s that paid to?
JM: My sister.
TR: And her name?
JM: Hilary Farm.
TR: Farm?
JM: Old MacDonald.
TR: Okay. And where does she live?
JM: Belle Plain.
TR: And do you write her a check every month for $332.14?
JM: No, I pay her $75 a week through PayPal.
TR: So she’s an independent contractor?
JM: Yep.
TR: And that’s your administrator who works with you as an independent contractor. Is that correct?
JM: Yes, mm-hmm.
TR: Internet: $95 a month.
JM: Yep.
TR: It says Airfare Average: $400 a month. Are you still flying out every month?
JM: Not going to be anymore.
TR: Hotel: $200 a month—not anymore?
JM: Not anymore.
TR: When was the last time you flew anywhere and stayed in a hotel?
JM: I think it was when I did my Texas photo classes.
TR: When was that?
JM: Um . . . I’ll know because I deposited a whole bunch of them . . .
IM: December, wasn’t it?
JM: Was it?
TR: I thought you flew out to Indianapolis after the bankruptcy.
JM: Oh yeah, you’re right, so it was at the end of December was the last time I flew, I guess, unless . . .
TR: Alright. CDs, Envelopes & Postage Average: $100 a month.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now is that from your photo online classes?
JM: Nope, that’s from photoshoots, when I go travel to these places, and I burn them that CD and I mail them all in envelopes to their houses.
TR: So you spend $100 a month on that?
JM: I have, yeah.
TR: How many photoshoots were you doing a month?
JM: 30 – 40? Little mini ones at these other, at these various locations, and then they each needed a, you know, a CD and a hard envelope.
TR: And you were charging how much for your CDs?
JM: Oh it always varied, depending. Um, usually around like, you know, $100.
TR: So you were making what, 30-40—no, that can’t be right. $100 per at 30, that’d be $3-4,000 a month just from the photoshoots then, right?
JM: Yes sir. That’s what we did when we were RV’ing around.
TR: Okay. I see the domain name expires on MyCharmingKids.net, looks like on November 20th, 2012. Does that sound accurate?
JM: Yeah.
TR: Escalate Media. Do you do any business with them?
JM: I’m sorry, who?
TR: Escalate, E-s-c-a-l-a-t-e?
JM: That does not sound familiar.
TR: How about Logical Media?
JM: That does not sound familiar.
TR: I have a note here—there’s a 2004 Jayco Jayflight. Does that refresh your memory at all?
JM: Sure, yep. We didn’t know what year it was, but that must be right.
IM: It sounds like it could be right. I’m not certain.
TR: I want to ask you about your camera equipment. How many cameras do you have?
JM: Two.
TR: And they are what?
JM: What kind of cameras?
TR: Mm-hmm.
JM: A Canon 5D and a Canon 40D.
TR: 40D?
JM: 40D?
TR: How many lenses do you have for those?
JM: Two.
TR: For each?
JM: Two total lenses.
TR: Okay. Total value of those camera equipment?
JM: I really don’t know. I could estimate. Do you want me to?
TR: _____ listing bankruptcy schedules you had 3 lenses, it says. {1:15:27}
JM: Um, I gave one away—my small, little cheapest one—to a blogger during a contest a while back.
TR: Is that before or after you filed?
JM: Possibly after. It was worth about $50. It wasn’t one of my important ones, but . . .
TR: So the cameras themselves, if you were to replace those, what would they cost?
JM: Replace them with a brand new one or replace them with another used one _____?
TR: Let’s talk about brand new right now.
JM: Okay, well the 50D is around a $2,000 camera.
PW: 5D or 40D?
JM: The 5D is actually a much more expensive camera.
TR: So it’s $2,000 new?
JM: Yep.
TR: 40D?
JM: The 40D, gosh that is pretty old, but I’m guessing it’s probably still worth around $900 or $1,000, you know. Or you can get them new, I’m sorry, for that amount.
TR: The lenses?
JM: Um, they’re both worth, new, about $1,500.
TR: Is there any diamond jewelry?
IM: Yes.
TR: What kind of stuff?
IM: Um, a wedding band.
TR: How big is the diamond?
IM: And an engagement band. How big is the diamond?
JM: Almost a carat.
TR: Okay. You don’t have that on today, I see.
JM: Nope.
TR: One carat diamond wedding band or is that the engagement?
JM: That’s the engagement.
TR: Engagement ring. How about the diamond in the wedding band?
JM: It has lots of little diamonds all the way around it.
TR: Okay. What’s the appraised value of the engagement ring?
JM: We got it appraised when we first had it insured and I thought it was around, like, $5 or $6,000.
IM: For the one with the diamonds around it?
JM: No, no, the one with—the ring.
IM: Oh.
JM: And then the other one was like $1,500.
IM: I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that I thought I bought the, uh, ring for $3,500.
JM: Okay.
IM: And I have no idea what the value of the diamond is inside.
TR: The ring itself?
JM: Right, without the diamond.
TR: The engagement ring.
IM: Yeah.
TR: Was $3,500?
IM: She seemed worth it.
TR: Okay, plus the diamond, so what were you insuring it for?
JM: Oh, when we first got married we were a lot more on top of things, and so we got, like, you know, insurance on our stuff and that was, like, the one thing we owned.
TR: Well what did you insure it for? How much?
JM: Oh sorry, I thought you meant, like, why did you insure it. I have absolutely no idea.
TR: Alright. You insure something for the appraised value.
JM: Probably that. Actually that’s why I got the little booklet, and so it appraised at 5 or 6. I remember it being like $5 or $6,000. That was eight years ago.
TR: Okay, why don’t you take that to a jewelry store and get an appraisal on it.
IM: Okay.
TR: I assume you’re still in possession of it?
JM: He is.
TR: You’ve got both rings?
IM: Yes.
TR: Does your ring have any value?
IM: I imagine.
TR: Okay. Diamonds?
IM: No diamonds.
JM: Platinum.
IM: Just platinum.
TR: Okay, just get me an appraisal on those.
IM: Alright.
TR: Alright, you listed a black lab, the goats—if I remember correctly you had some of the goats had some little goats. Was that before or after you filed bankruptcy?
JM: The little goats were still inside before we filed.
TR: And you got a total of $300 for the goats, you gave them away, right?
JM: Yep.
TR: Alright, total PayPal income from 2011 was $67,086. Now that would have been from the photography stuff you did, right?
JM: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear—I wasn’t listening.
TR: PayPal income for 2011, $67,086, alright?
JM: Yep.
TR: And that would have come from photoshoots?
JM: Yep.
TR: What else?
JM: Online classes, in person classes.
TR: Anything else.
JM: Weddings, um, anywhere else I would have gotten money, you mean?
TR: Where else would that $67,000 originate?
JM: You know, my dad would give us gifts through PayPal.
TR: I saw those; they’re fairly small, aren’t they?
JM: Exactly. And then sometimes I would sell things on eBay or people would pay me—very minimal. For the most part that’s all photography or blog income.
TR: Alright. Google AdSense revenue 2011, $21,303—that’s self explanatory?
JM: Yep.
TR: That was all through clicks on your website, correct?
JM: Yep. Indeed.
TR: Deposits in branch bank, $59,736. That’s what you’ve got there?
JM: Yep.
PW: Hopefully that adds up to that.
JM: Yeah, exactly. I had the same thought when I was looking through them.
Is there any way I could—we could take a break or I could go to the bathroom, one of the two?
TR: Yes, anytime. We’ll take a short break.
TR: Alright. As I was saying you filed bankruptcy on ____ December 12th. You were in Indianapolis to photograph a wedding on December 28th, right? {1:02:38}
JM: Yep.
TR: So was that something that was booked prior to your bankruptcy filing?
JM: It was a pretty last minute booking. I remember it was pretty last minute. I can’t say for sure, sir.
TR: Did you have money paid to you?
JM: Oh, yep, it must have been because here’s—she’s paying me on the 28th of November, so I must have booked it shortly before this.
TR: Okay. Where’s that deposit?
JM: Into my photography account and that’s in the copy of the check.
TR: November . . .
JM: This is the photography one, isn’t it?
PW: It’s into account # 2242.
TR: This is Jennifer McKinney Photography account # 9246.
PW: This one shows 2242.
JM: They all do?
PW: Not all of them. They’re all different ones.
JM: Different account numbers?
PW: Yeah.
JM: I think it’s supposed to be everything.
TR: Alright, so we have a deposit when for this photoshoot?
PW: You know what, that’s their account number.
JM: Okay.
PW: We do have a deposit for that photoshoot, yes.
TR: What day was that?
PW: 11/28. The check was written 11/28, looks like the processing date was 12/02.
TR: Okay, how much was that?
PW: $900.
TR: Was that the total amount paid for the photoshoot?
JM: No, she paid me some more at the wedding. She was giving me a deposit and then she was paying me for –reimbursing me for the airfare to get there.
TR: How much more did they pay you?
JM: Um, she paid me $800 or $900 again when I got there. I think like 13 or 14 total.
TR: 8 or 900 plus another 900? That would be 1800, wouldn’t it?
JM: Yeah but some of that money was for my plane ticket, so I guess I was talking about payment for the wedding, not just . . .
TR: So you were contracted to do this then at the time you filed bankruptcy.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Did you, uh, travel back to Africa?
JM: I didn’t. I decided not to.
TR: Have you purchased a plane ticket for any future travel _____? {1:04:40}
JM: I have not.
TR: A Million Moms—is that another affiliate program you have?
JM: No, Million Moms is just a name of a certain ad campaign that I did through BlogFrog and it must have just—is it . . .
TR: So you got paid through BlogFrog?
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: SendOutCards. What do you do for them?
JM: Oh, well nothing. I’ve never made money from them. I joined a business opportunity and didn’t end up making a penny.
TR: Do you have cards that you have, inventory that you sell?
JM: No.
TR: No?
JM: I’m not active with them at all. I never . . .
TR: I think I saw some place where you paid like $400 or $500 to SendOutCards.
JM: Yep.
TR: What was that for?
JM: To start, to join the business as a distributor.
TR: It was shortly before you filed bankruptcy I think, wasn’t it?
JM: It was before Christmas so it could have been right around that time. I was trying to jump on it at Christmastime.
TR: So you sold those cards?
JM: No.
TR: Have you sold any of them?
JM: No.
PW: Mr. Trustee?
TR: Mm?
PW: I do have two checks deposited somewhere around December 6th.
TR: Okay.
PW: Added together come up to about 6387. I think that’s that number you were looking for there, and they were both from BlogFrog.
TR: Okay, so it’s—it came up to 62, you said?
PW: Uh, 6387.
TR: That sounds right.
PW: Is what I’m looking at, and then there might be, you know, something else that adds to that, maybe there was a third check somewhere.
JM: It would have been another $500 check then, to make 68.
PW: Right, so . . .
TR: Okay, so BlogFrog paid you approximately $6,300 in December of 2011?
JM: Looks like they did.
TR: And maybe we’ve covered this before, but you’ve got Say, you’ve got Burst and you’ve got BlogFrog–
JM: Say and BlogFrog
PW: Are the same.
JM: Were the same.
TR: Okay. So—and you didn’t make . . . and BlogFrog discontinued doing business with you in December?
JM: With Say.
TR: With Say. But they’re still doing business with you now?
JM: Yeah but it’s like I don’t really get anything because they’re not with Say, but technically we’re affiliated.
TR: But you’re with Burst, aren’t you?
JM: Now I’m back with Google.
TR: Okay. You were always with Google though, right?
JM: Nope. When I’m with someone else I’m not with Google at all, except maybe a tiny spillover. It’s . . .
TR: Alright, there’s a December 19th blog where you said you finished paying off your car, even though you hadn’t had the car in years. What car is that?
JM: That’s the Tucson.
TR: You do have your car, don’t you?
JM: My sister drives it.
TR: Did you give it to her?
JM: No. She paid us for it.
TR: This is the 2005 Hyundai.
JM: Yes.
TR: That you list in your schedules.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: When did your sister pay you for it?
JM: When was that? We lived in Mound, so . . . Stellan wasn’t even born yet. 2006, maybe?
IM: 6, 7
TR: So it’s titled in your name or her name?
JM: Mine.
TR: Yet she’s paid you for it. She drives it.
JM: She paid me; not for the whole amount that, you know . . .
TR: How much does she still owe you?
JM: She doesn’t owe me anything.
TR: When did she pay you?
JM: In 2006.
TR: For the whole car.
JM: For as much as we agreed on.
TR: [snort]
JM: I’m not trying to be silly. I didn’t make her pay me the whole amount that I owed.
IM: It is titled in her name.
JM: No, no.
IM: Or his name, her husband’s name.
JM: No, no, it’s titled in our name. It is.
PW: I think we provided the title.
JM: We actually had to go get the title.
PW: Yeah.
IM: Oh.
PW: They _____ transfer.
JM: They’ve never transferred it.
PW: You wondered why it was listed in the schedules.
JM: Well it wasn’t really hers and I still owed on it, but I did decide to . . .
TR: Alright, so the 2005 Hyundai, that’s the car you’ve added $6,554, you sold to her. She paid you something for it,
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: It’s titled still in your name.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Right? But she drives it and she’s been driving it for a couple of years.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Who pays for the insurance?
JM: She does.
TR: And you’re not owed any more money for it. Is that right?
JM: I don’t. I finished paying it off.
TR: Yeah, I think you said you still owed like $700 for it after you filed bankruptcy, right?
JM: Maybe but I wanted to get it paid off since I didn’t want any chance of her car getting—you know what I mean? I wanted to finish paying, so I may have still owed $800 or so, but finished shortly thereafter.
TR: So why would you pay off her car?
JM: So that it could be fully hers. So that we could eventually transfer her the title. So she wouldn’t have to worry about driving a car that her sister, well, was financially responsible for. What—I mean . . .
TR: How much did she pay you for it?
JM: Do you remember? Didn’t they pay us $10,000 for it, at least owed like 16 or something?
IM: It was five years ago; I don’t know.
JM: Yeah. Maybe something like $10,000 and we still owed like $18,000 or something like that. So I just kept paying on it through the years.
TR: Alright. You listed for your expenses, this is _____, June 19th, Administration: $332.14 a month. Who’s that paid to?
JM: My sister.
TR: And her name?
JM: Hilary Farm.
TR: Farm?
JM: Old MacDonald.
TR: Okay. And where does she live?
JM: Belle Plain.
TR: And do you write her a check every month for $332.14?
JM: No, I pay her $75 a week through PayPal.
TR: So she’s an independent contractor?
JM: Yep.
TR: And that’s your administrator who works with you as an independent contractor. Is that correct?
JM: Yes, mm-hmm.
TR: Internet: $95 a month.
JM: Yep.
TR: It says Airfare Average: $400 a month. Are you still flying out every month?
JM: Not going to be anymore.
TR: Hotel: $200 a month—not anymore?
JM: Not anymore.
TR: When was the last time you flew anywhere and stayed in a hotel?
JM: I think it was when I did my Texas photo classes.
TR: When was that?
JM: Um . . . I’ll know because I deposited a whole bunch of them . . .
IM: December, wasn’t it?
JM: Was it?
TR: I thought you flew out to Indianapolis after the bankruptcy.
JM: Oh yeah, you’re right, so it was at the end of December was the last time I flew, I guess, unless . . .
TR: Alright. CDs, Envelopes & Postage Average: $100 a month.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Now is that from your photo online classes?
JM: Nope, that’s from photoshoots, when I go travel to these places, and I burn them that CD and I mail them all in envelopes to their houses.
TR: So you spend $100 a month on that?
JM: I have, yeah.
TR: How many photoshoots were you doing a month?
JM: 30 – 40? Little mini ones at these other, at these various locations, and then they each needed a, you know, a CD and a hard envelope.
TR: And you were charging how much for your CDs?
JM: Oh it always varied, depending. Um, usually around like, you know, $100.
TR: So you were making what, 30-40—no, that can’t be right. $100 per at 30, that’d be $3-4,000 a month just from the photoshoots then, right?
JM: Yes sir. That’s what we did when we were RV’ing around.
TR: Okay. I see the domain name expires on MyCharmingKids.net, looks like on November 20th, 2012. Does that sound accurate?
JM: Yeah.
TR: Escalate Media. Do you do any business with them?
JM: I’m sorry, who?
TR: Escalate, E-s-c-a-l-a-t-e?
JM: That does not sound familiar.
TR: How about Logical Media?
JM: That does not sound familiar.
TR: I have a note here—there’s a 2004 Jayco Jayflight. Does that refresh your memory at all?
JM: Sure, yep. We didn’t know what year it was, but that must be right.
IM: It sounds like it could be right. I’m not certain.
TR: I want to ask you about your camera equipment. How many cameras do you have?
JM: Two.
TR: And they are what?
JM: What kind of cameras?
TR: Mm-hmm.
JM: A Canon 5D and a Canon 40D.
TR: 40D?
JM: 40D?
TR: How many lenses do you have for those?
JM: Two.
TR: For each?
JM: Two total lenses.
TR: Okay. Total value of those camera equipment?
JM: I really don’t know. I could estimate. Do you want me to?
TR: _____ listing bankruptcy schedules you had 3 lenses, it says. {1:15:27}
JM: Um, I gave one away—my small, little cheapest one—to a blogger during a contest a while back.
TR: Is that before or after you filed?
JM: Possibly after. It was worth about $50. It wasn’t one of my important ones, but . . .
TR: So the cameras themselves, if you were to replace those, what would they cost?
JM: Replace them with a brand new one or replace them with another used one _____?
TR: Let’s talk about brand new right now.
JM: Okay, well the 50D is around a $2,000 camera.
PW: 5D or 40D?
JM: The 5D is actually a much more expensive camera.
TR: So it’s $2,000 new?
JM: Yep.
TR: 40D?
JM: The 40D, gosh that is pretty old, but I’m guessing it’s probably still worth around $900 or $1,000, you know. Or you can get them new, I’m sorry, for that amount.
TR: The lenses?
JM: Um, they’re both worth, new, about $1,500.
TR: Is there any diamond jewelry?
IM: Yes.
TR: What kind of stuff?
IM: Um, a wedding band.
TR: How big is the diamond?
IM: And an engagement band. How big is the diamond?
JM: Almost a carat.
TR: Okay. You don’t have that on today, I see.
JM: Nope.
TR: One carat diamond wedding band or is that the engagement?
JM: That’s the engagement.
TR: Engagement ring. How about the diamond in the wedding band?
JM: It has lots of little diamonds all the way around it.
TR: Okay. What’s the appraised value of the engagement ring?
JM: We got it appraised when we first had it insured and I thought it was around, like, $5 or $6,000.
IM: For the one with the diamonds around it?
JM: No, no, the one with—the ring.
IM: Oh.
JM: And then the other one was like $1,500.
IM: I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that I thought I bought the, uh, ring for $3,500.
JM: Okay.
IM: And I have no idea what the value of the diamond is inside.
TR: The ring itself?
JM: Right, without the diamond.
TR: The engagement ring.
IM: Yeah.
TR: Was $3,500?
IM: She seemed worth it.
TR: Okay, plus the diamond, so what were you insuring it for?
JM: Oh, when we first got married we were a lot more on top of things, and so we got, like, you know, insurance on our stuff and that was, like, the one thing we owned.
TR: Well what did you insure it for? How much?
JM: Oh sorry, I thought you meant, like, why did you insure it. I have absolutely no idea.
TR: Alright. You insure something for the appraised value.
JM: Probably that. Actually that’s why I got the little booklet, and so it appraised at 5 or 6. I remember it being like $5 or $6,000. That was eight years ago.
TR: Okay, why don’t you take that to a jewelry store and get an appraisal on it.
IM: Okay.
TR: I assume you’re still in possession of it?
JM: He is.
TR: You’ve got both rings?
IM: Yes.
TR: Does your ring have any value?
IM: I imagine.
TR: Okay. Diamonds?
IM: No diamonds.
JM: Platinum.
IM: Just platinum.
TR: Okay, just get me an appraisal on those.
IM: Alright.
TR: Alright, you listed a black lab, the goats—if I remember correctly you had some of the goats had some little goats. Was that before or after you filed bankruptcy?
JM: The little goats were still inside before we filed.
TR: And you got a total of $300 for the goats, you gave them away, right?
JM: Yep.
TR: Alright, total PayPal income from 2011 was $67,086. Now that would have been from the photography stuff you did, right?
JM: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear—I wasn’t listening.
TR: PayPal income for 2011, $67,086, alright?
JM: Yep.
TR: And that would have come from photoshoots?
JM: Yep.
TR: What else?
JM: Online classes, in person classes.
TR: Anything else.
JM: Weddings, um, anywhere else I would have gotten money, you mean?
TR: Where else would that $67,000 originate?
JM: You know, my dad would give us gifts through PayPal.
TR: I saw those; they’re fairly small, aren’t they?
JM: Exactly. And then sometimes I would sell things on eBay or people would pay me—very minimal. For the most part that’s all photography or blog income.
TR: Alright. Google AdSense revenue 2011, $21,303—that’s self explanatory?
JM: Yep.
TR: That was all through clicks on your website, correct?
JM: Yep. Indeed.
TR: Deposits in branch bank, $59,736. That’s what you’ve got there?
JM: Yep.
PW: Hopefully that adds up to that.
JM: Yeah, exactly. I had the same thought when I was looking through them.
Is there any way I could—we could take a break or I could go to the bathroom, one of the two?
TR: Yes, anytime. We’ll take a short break.
[BREAK]
TR: Alright, after a short break we’re back on record again. Mrs. McKinney, your counsel has given me a list of check deposits, it looks like, or copies of checks that were deposited into your accounts. My understanding this was deposited into the 9446 account. Is that correct?
JM: Yes.
TR: This list purports to be all of the deposits that you received. Is that right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay.
PW: At least you asked the bank.
JM: I asked the bank for the whole year and that’s what they gave me.
TR: Okay. So when there’s, like, on 9/16/11, somebody paid $100 for a workshop, photography class, was that on location or is that something you did there in Minnesota?
JM: Those that you’re seeing, I think, are all from the on location one I did in Texas.
TR: Okay, so you were in Texas in September.
JM: Apparently.
TR: Or October.
JM: Yep.
TR: Now these are checks that are actually written out to you. They don’t go through PayPal, do they?
JM: No.
TR: Okay. So you’re collecting checks for these photography classes and depositing them to bank account, in addition to some people paying you through PayPal?
JM: Yes. Very few of those, as far as percent-wise and volume of money, are from photography clients, but some. Most of that is my BlogFrog and Say hard copy checks that came, that we’ve already noted, that I deposit in person. And there’s one very, very large gift / loan / something from my dad in there.
TR: It was December 2010, right? $10,000?
JM: I don’t remember.
TR: Did you pay any of it back?
JM: Yeah, we paid it back for a little bit and then he told us we could stop and it could just be ours.
TR: How much did you pay him?
JM: Probably around $1,000 or $1,200.
TR: So the question in your bankruptcy schedules—did you pay any relatives within the one year before you filed bankruptcy? {1:23:55}
JM: Oh.
TR: You didn’t list any that I recall.
JM: I guess I thought that was, like, giving relatives money and not paying back a loan, but . . . sorry.
TR: So you paid your dad back $1,000, _____? {1:24:09}
JM: Probably
TR: Where did the money come from?
JM: What money? The $1,000?
TR: Yes, the $1,200 you said you paid him, or the $1,000 – $1,200.
JM: From my blog income.
TR: I know but what bank account were the checks _____?
JM: Oh. Probably my photography one. That’s all I was using until relatively recently.
TR: What’s your Dad’s name?
JM: John Sauls, S-a-u-l-s.
TR: What’s his address?
JM: XXXX Xxxxxx Xx
TR: Xxxxxx?
JM: X-x-x-x-x-x
TR: In?
JM: La Crosse, Wisconsin, 54601
TR: 5-what?
JM: 54601
TR: Okay. And you have a new address, too?
JM: Yes.
TR: What’s that?
JM: XXX X. Xxxxxx Xx, in Xxxxxxxxx, Wisconsin.
TR: Are you renting or buying?
JM: Renting.
TR: You’re going to get a new notice filed with the bankruptcy court if you want to get your notices.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Wxxxxxx Cxxxxx got $500 from you on February 28th. What was that for?
JM: Rent.
TR: You had a payment from the Kelly Moore Bag Store, $270. What was that for?
JM: An ad that I put on my blog for her.
TR: Italia Leather Wholesale, $95. Another ad?
JM: Mm-hmm
TR: Payment from Global Hope Network on February 13th, $200. What was that for?
JM: A payment from them?
TR: Yes.
JM: Oh, that was from an ad that the ministry bought over Christmas, on my blog.
TR: Alright.
Alright sir, do you have any questions? Mr. Hxxxxxx?
SH: Say again?
TR: Do you have any questions?
SH: Um, possibly. I’m not sure—is this my only chance to address you?
TR: Well for me, but if you have—mostly it’s not questions for me, it’s if you have questions for these two individuals.
SH: Yeah, I didn’t know if I should be included in the bankruptcy because I have past bills or because we’re starting a new list of bills.
TR: If you were owed money at the time that she filed bankruptcy you should have been included.
SH: I could be, right.
I have a separate case with them pending, to regain my rent that was owed to me for January.
TR: Okay. Did they owe you any money before she filed bankruptcy in December 12th of 2011?
SH: At the time they filed I had, the last week of December, learned that they had not paid the gas bill out at the farm. It was four months of gas bill due so that was either going to be—that was going to be due to me if it wasn’t going to be paid so yes, they had four months of utility bills that was not paid.
TR: When did they move out there?
SH: September 1st—let’s see, they showed up the first week of September; they just finished up having a big yard sale at their home in Becker.
TR: So moved out there the first week of September, 2011.
SH: Right.
TR: When did they first contact you about renting your place?
SH: Um, about the same time.
TR: Okay. Within a couple of days?
SH: Uh, possibly maybe a week or ten days before that. They were actually maybe second or third on the list. I had an initial renter but that one didn’t work out, so I called them immediately.
TR: Okay. I remember something about rent being paid into escrow?
JM: Yes.
SH: Right. But I was getting a little bit suspicious around the Christmas holiday that this was maybe just an attempt to get out of rent, so that was—I have a lease agreement with them that they’re supposed to be paying the utilities out there. My suspicions were that they hadn’t been paying the gas bill and that they had used up nearly the majority of the $1,000 worth of propane in that tank. I called Rick Gappa Gas Service and they confirmed that they had not been out there once during that entire time period, to put in any gas. I had that sort of sinking feeling in my stomach that something was going on there.
JM: Yes.
TR: This list purports to be all of the deposits that you received. Is that right?
JM: Yes.
TR: Okay.
PW: At least you asked the bank.
JM: I asked the bank for the whole year and that’s what they gave me.
TR: Okay. So when there’s, like, on 9/16/11, somebody paid $100 for a workshop, photography class, was that on location or is that something you did there in Minnesota?
JM: Those that you’re seeing, I think, are all from the on location one I did in Texas.
TR: Okay, so you were in Texas in September.
JM: Apparently.
TR: Or October.
JM: Yep.
TR: Now these are checks that are actually written out to you. They don’t go through PayPal, do they?
JM: No.
TR: Okay. So you’re collecting checks for these photography classes and depositing them to bank account, in addition to some people paying you through PayPal?
JM: Yes. Very few of those, as far as percent-wise and volume of money, are from photography clients, but some. Most of that is my BlogFrog and Say hard copy checks that came, that we’ve already noted, that I deposit in person. And there’s one very, very large gift / loan / something from my dad in there.
TR: It was December 2010, right? $10,000?
JM: I don’t remember.
TR: Did you pay any of it back?
JM: Yeah, we paid it back for a little bit and then he told us we could stop and it could just be ours.
TR: How much did you pay him?
JM: Probably around $1,000 or $1,200.
TR: So the question in your bankruptcy schedules—did you pay any relatives within the one year before you filed bankruptcy? {1:23:55}
JM: Oh.
TR: You didn’t list any that I recall.
JM: I guess I thought that was, like, giving relatives money and not paying back a loan, but . . . sorry.
TR: So you paid your dad back $1,000, _____? {1:24:09}
JM: Probably
TR: Where did the money come from?
JM: What money? The $1,000?
TR: Yes, the $1,200 you said you paid him, or the $1,000 – $1,200.
JM: From my blog income.
TR: I know but what bank account were the checks _____?
JM: Oh. Probably my photography one. That’s all I was using until relatively recently.
TR: What’s your Dad’s name?
JM: John Sauls, S-a-u-l-s.
TR: What’s his address?
JM: XXXX Xxxxxx Xx
TR: Xxxxxx?
JM: X-x-x-x-x-x
TR: In?
JM: La Crosse, Wisconsin, 54601
TR: 5-what?
JM: 54601
TR: Okay. And you have a new address, too?
JM: Yes.
TR: What’s that?
JM: XXX X. Xxxxxx Xx, in Xxxxxxxxx, Wisconsin.
TR: Are you renting or buying?
JM: Renting.
TR: You’re going to get a new notice filed with the bankruptcy court if you want to get your notices.
JM: Mm-hmm.
TR: Wxxxxxx Cxxxxx got $500 from you on February 28th. What was that for?
JM: Rent.
TR: You had a payment from the Kelly Moore Bag Store, $270. What was that for?
JM: An ad that I put on my blog for her.
TR: Italia Leather Wholesale, $95. Another ad?
JM: Mm-hmm
TR: Payment from Global Hope Network on February 13th, $200. What was that for?
JM: A payment from them?
TR: Yes.
JM: Oh, that was from an ad that the ministry bought over Christmas, on my blog.
TR: Alright.
Alright sir, do you have any questions? Mr. Hxxxxxx?
SH: Say again?
TR: Do you have any questions?
SH: Um, possibly. I’m not sure—is this my only chance to address you?
TR: Well for me, but if you have—mostly it’s not questions for me, it’s if you have questions for these two individuals.
SH: Yeah, I didn’t know if I should be included in the bankruptcy because I have past bills or because we’re starting a new list of bills.
TR: If you were owed money at the time that she filed bankruptcy you should have been included.
SH: I could be, right.
I have a separate case with them pending, to regain my rent that was owed to me for January.
TR: Okay. Did they owe you any money before she filed bankruptcy in December 12th of 2011?
SH: At the time they filed I had, the last week of December, learned that they had not paid the gas bill out at the farm. It was four months of gas bill due so that was either going to be—that was going to be due to me if it wasn’t going to be paid so yes, they had four months of utility bills that was not paid.
TR: When did they move out there?
SH: September 1st—let’s see, they showed up the first week of September; they just finished up having a big yard sale at their home in Becker.
TR: So moved out there the first week of September, 2011.
SH: Right.
TR: When did they first contact you about renting your place?
SH: Um, about the same time.
TR: Okay. Within a couple of days?
SH: Uh, possibly maybe a week or ten days before that. They were actually maybe second or third on the list. I had an initial renter but that one didn’t work out, so I called them immediately.
TR: Okay. I remember something about rent being paid into escrow?
JM: Yes.
SH: Right. But I was getting a little bit suspicious around the Christmas holiday that this was maybe just an attempt to get out of rent, so that was—I have a lease agreement with them that they’re supposed to be paying the utilities out there. My suspicions were that they hadn’t been paying the gas bill and that they had used up nearly the majority of the $1,000 worth of propane in that tank. I called Rick Gappa Gas Service and they confirmed that they had not been out there once during that entire time period, to put in any gas. I had that sort of sinking feeling in my stomach that something was going on there.
I then learned about this bankruptcy case but only by accident. The papers that were being sent to me for this bankruptcy case were being sent to them. The postmaster recognized the mistake on it and had the papers given to my folks, and they were sent to me out in California, where they knew I was at at the time.
I, at that point in time, realized that I had—I felt like I had been lied to and taken for a scam. So around the middle of January, to make sure that I knew that I was sure about this, I called the electric company and learned that they had not paid any electrical bills out there. I checked with them again yesterday; they have not paid any electrical bills in the five months that they have lived there.
TR: Okay.
SH: Nancy from the billing department was willing to come today and she’s willing to come to another hearing if she needs to testify to this. It’s well over $1,000 that is owed on the account out there.
TR: Okay.
SH: Nancy from the billing department was willing to come today and she’s willing to come to another hearing if she needs to testify to this. It’s well over $1,000 that is owed on the account out there.
I had an e-mail from Jennifer here in my file, from the first week of September, stating that she was putting the utilities and the propane in her name that day. It never happened. So altogether I did not get rent, I did not get the gas bill—or the propane bill.
I have since contacted Gary _____ who did snow plowing out there; he hadn’t been paid. And Corey’s Waste hadn’t been paid for picking up trash.
TR: Okay. To the extent there’s any bills that were incurred after the bankruptcy was filed it doesn’t get discharged in the bankruptcy.
SH: I didn’t—
TR: To the extent that there’s bills incurred after the bankruptcy is filed, they aren’t discharged in the bankruptcy.
SH: Yeah?
TR: But to the extent that you think she owes you money from pre-bankruptcy debt, you have to get your own attorney to represent your interests. Alright?
SH: Right, Okay.
TR: Anything else?
SH: Is there a time period that we’re supposed to submit the records to them, as far as the electric company now? I mean, are they out of that timeframe?
TR: You’ll need to talk to your own attorney. I can’t give you legal advice.
SH: Okay.
TR: Okay?
SH: I have a black refrigerator they left behind at my house. I’m not sure if it’s the one that they purchased, that they were speaking of here. I’m not sure what’s—if it belongs to the bankruptcy court at this point in time or if it belongs to me. It’s still sitting there, it’s full of garbage and it stinks.
JM: That’s the one that you agreed to buy. That’s why I left it.
SH: I agreed to buy it from them. I believe it worked at the time. I said I would give them $100 for it. They left it behind. It’s full of garbage and it stinks.
TR: Did you give them $100 for it?
SH: I agreed that I would under the terms of the release of our bankruptcy, or, I’m sorry, the release of their escrow money. We had negotiated an agreement there and I thought that was going to be closed, and that was part of it.
TR: Alright. Anything else, sir?
SH: I don’t believe so. In the garage they’ve left behind approximately ten boxes. They look like the—possibly they’re records of the last how many years, personal records, business records and what not. I don’t know if they’re intending on coming back at this point in time to get this stuff back or if I’m allowed to dispose of them.
TR: Do you have business records there that you intend to retrieve?
IM: I do, yeah.
TR: When can you get them?
IM: Um, well, um—previous to him just saying that I have e-mails saying that I can leave them there indefinitely.
TR: Well when are you going to come get them, if you want them?
IM: Well I have a month-to-month lease through April and at that time I can get a storage facility and get them.
TR: You want your records on his property you should get them now.
IM: Why? I asked him in writing if I could leave them there and he said yes. Why would I think that I have to go get them now?
TR: Sir, are you consenting to him leaving the records?
SH: I didn’t have any objection to it, I just didn’t know if—they’re left in a pile of trash, I assumed that they probably were trash and they purt’near got thrown out, so I don’t know if they are or not.
TR: Alright. If he says he’s not going to come get them for a couple of months is that okay with you?
IM: The end of April.
SH: Okay, yes. If they need that time I’ll be glad to give them that time.
TR: Alright. Anything else?
SH: I don’t believe so.
TR: Okay. With that this meeting will be concluded. Thank you.
[END OF AUDIO]
TR: Okay. To the extent there’s any bills that were incurred after the bankruptcy was filed it doesn’t get discharged in the bankruptcy.
SH: I didn’t—
TR: To the extent that there’s bills incurred after the bankruptcy is filed, they aren’t discharged in the bankruptcy.
SH: Yeah?
TR: But to the extent that you think she owes you money from pre-bankruptcy debt, you have to get your own attorney to represent your interests. Alright?
SH: Right, Okay.
TR: Anything else?
SH: Is there a time period that we’re supposed to submit the records to them, as far as the electric company now? I mean, are they out of that timeframe?
TR: You’ll need to talk to your own attorney. I can’t give you legal advice.
SH: Okay.
TR: Okay?
SH: I have a black refrigerator they left behind at my house. I’m not sure if it’s the one that they purchased, that they were speaking of here. I’m not sure what’s—if it belongs to the bankruptcy court at this point in time or if it belongs to me. It’s still sitting there, it’s full of garbage and it stinks.
JM: That’s the one that you agreed to buy. That’s why I left it.
SH: I agreed to buy it from them. I believe it worked at the time. I said I would give them $100 for it. They left it behind. It’s full of garbage and it stinks.
TR: Did you give them $100 for it?
SH: I agreed that I would under the terms of the release of our bankruptcy, or, I’m sorry, the release of their escrow money. We had negotiated an agreement there and I thought that was going to be closed, and that was part of it.
TR: Alright. Anything else, sir?
SH: I don’t believe so. In the garage they’ve left behind approximately ten boxes. They look like the—possibly they’re records of the last how many years, personal records, business records and what not. I don’t know if they’re intending on coming back at this point in time to get this stuff back or if I’m allowed to dispose of them.
TR: Do you have business records there that you intend to retrieve?
IM: I do, yeah.
TR: When can you get them?
IM: Um, well, um—previous to him just saying that I have e-mails saying that I can leave them there indefinitely.
TR: Well when are you going to come get them, if you want them?
IM: Well I have a month-to-month lease through April and at that time I can get a storage facility and get them.
TR: You want your records on his property you should get them now.
IM: Why? I asked him in writing if I could leave them there and he said yes. Why would I think that I have to go get them now?
TR: Sir, are you consenting to him leaving the records?
SH: I didn’t have any objection to it, I just didn’t know if—they’re left in a pile of trash, I assumed that they probably were trash and they purt’near got thrown out, so I don’t know if they are or not.
TR: Alright. If he says he’s not going to come get them for a couple of months is that okay with you?
IM: The end of April.
SH: Okay, yes. If they need that time I’ll be glad to give them that time.
TR: Alright. Anything else?
SH: I don’t believe so.
TR: Okay. With that this meeting will be concluded. Thank you.
[END OF AUDIO]
