Debt

“	How the hell CWC is going to pay all that?	”
Twitter user TaoOfMao1, on viewing the result for Chris's third debt lawsuit.

“	A bit at a time. Do Not Judge Me, Mao. It is wrong to judge others by outdated information and financial shit.	”
Chris's response. He has been sued for nonpayment many times since.

The first of many debt lawsuits against the Chandlers.

Debt is money owed to a creditor. Due to their mutual laziness and propensities towards hoarding, Barbara and Chris are both heavily in debt. Both have been taken to court for their failure to pay debts. According to court records, Barbara owes at least $20,000, while Chris owes over $7,000.

As of 2020, Barb has been sued two times and Chris nine times (two being garnishment cases).

Debts

This table summarizes various unpaid debts charged to credit cards and other owed amounts between Chris and Barb. Keep in mind that these are only amounts found by Christorians via Chris's online posts and Virginia District Court public records.

On 30 November 2016, Chris started a Patreon with a goal of $250,000; he estimates $200,000 to pay off the mortgage and other debts, plus an extra $50,000 for himself, just because.

Date debt incurred	Debtor	Item	Amount ($)	Notes
		Barbara	Mortgage payments to Seterus Inc	115,000.00	Mortgaged 14 Branchland Court for collateral to pay credit card debt. $900 per month, using money from Chris's tugboat
24 September 2014	Chris	Loan for Son-Chu	9,000.00
1 March 2016	Chris	PS4 purchase (via Fingerhut.com)	540.00
16 April 2016	Chris	Payday loan (not counting the extremely high interest rates)	3,000.00
Total

Court cases

Filed date	Judgement date	Debtor	Item	Amount ($)	Notes
19 February 2016	16 March 2016	Barbara	Discover Bank debt lawsuit	4,706.93
4 August 2016	14 September 2016	Barbara	Capital One debt lawsuit	15,906.99
17 July 2017	24 August 2017	Chris	Mariner Finance debt lawsuit		Case dismissed
24 September 2018	16 January 2019	Chris	Second Round Sub debt lawsuit	2,467.63	Failed to maintain payments; creditor filed for garnishment
23 October 2018	19 December 2018	Chris	Midland Funding debt lawsuit	2,777.90	Failed to maintain payments; creditor filed for garnishment
2 April 2019	19 June 2019	Chris	Portfolio Recovery Associates debt lawsuit	1,079.08
6 May 2019	19 June 2019	Chris	Portfolio Recovery Associates debt lawsuit	1,602.62	Eyewitness account of the hearing.
24 May 2019	3 July 2019	Chris	Midland Funding garnishment hearing		Closed early. Result: Dismissed No Funds
11 November 2019	15 January 2020	Chris	Second Round Sub garnishment hearing		Closed early. Result: Other
30 January 2020	18 March 2020	Chris	Jefferson Capital Systems debt lawsuit		Ongoing
30 January 2020	18 March 2020	Chris	Portfolio Recovery Associates debt lawsuit		Ongoing
Total debt cases				11

Gallery

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  Jefferson Capital Systems, Warrant in Debt, January 2020

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  Portfolio Recovery Associates, Warrant in Debt, January 2020

Causes of debt

Credit Cards

That Chris has managed to acquire several credit cards is very surprising, but the foolishness with which he uses them wouldn't surprise anybody at all. As of February 2009, Chris had managed to rack up $2,000 worth of debt (at the time of Mumble 4, $1,000 of that sum came from the PSN store, but his bill for PSN downloads increased by the day) and had even stolen his parents' credit cards to use when his own were maxed out. According to an e-mail Chris sent to Vivian Gee, by January 2010 his debt was around $3,500 and had apparently been higher at some point in the intervening time.

By that point, Chris's debt had gotten so out of hand that Bob was forced to step in, making Chris reduce and manage on his spending, and forcing Chris to make regular payments to pay off his outstanding debt. Chris, thoughtless and uninterested in the fact that unpaid credit card debt accrues severe interest, had historically made payments in the smallest installments possible.

Chris provided some more details about this situation in his e-mails to Jackie from July 2010. At some point, Bob paid off Chris's credit card debt and took payment in installments out of the tugboat in compensation. This foolish act of parental financial enabling allowed Chris to avoid the immediate consequences of his gross financial irresponsibility, and resulted in Chris learning nothing about how to manage his own finances, reinforcing Chris's attitude that he should be able to do anything that he wants and not suffer any negative consequences.

Best Buy MasterCard

Not surprisingly, it only took Chris a few short months to land himself in more financial trouble. In the Matthew Noble call, Bob himself revealed that Chris had not only acquired a MasterCard charge account through Best Buy, but as of the second week of August 2010, Chris had predictably used it to land himself in yet more debt and had been laden with fees for bouncing a card payment.

One of Chris's e-mails to Jackie reveals that Chris acquired the Best Buy charge card without his parents' permission; he only told them about it after receiving 2 bounced check fees that showed up on his bank statement, which his father was actively monitoring. In true Chris fashion, he tried to repay the minimum balance each month. When he was forced to reveal the debt to his parents, Bob was obviously less than thrilled. He promptly took control of Chris's bank account as well as his credit cards. From that point until Bob's death, he received only an allowance in the form of Visa gift cards, leaving him unable to accrue any more debt for a short time. At the time, the prospect of not being able to blow his welfare on frivolities stressed him out.

Curiously, even in his private communications with Jackie, Chris claimed that the overdraft fees that gave away the existence of the card to Bob were the work of trolls. Elsewhere in their conversations, however, he recounts other instances of "getting carried away" and accidentally overdrawing his bank account, suggesting that he was just using the trolls as a handy scapegoat for his own mistakes.

Bob, delusional and in the throes of some sort of conspiracy paranoia involving the staff and patrons of The GAMe PLACe, claimed that it was most likely Michael Snyder who had hacked Chris's credit card and checking accounts, though why someone who's been on a manager's salary for several years would bother stealing from any of the near-destitute Chandlers is unknown.

It's unknown why any financial institution would give Chris a line of credit at this point. Bob probably salvaged Chris's credit rating when he paid off all his prior card debt at once, but he angrily claimed Chris ruined it with the Best Buy debt (certainly true), and, in disturbingly Chris-like fashion, seemed to use this damning information to try to make Chris's latest brush with the law seem "petty" in comparison.

Credit card debt

Unverified information on Chris's credit card debt was leaked on the CWCki Forums on 4 June 2014. It was revealed that Chris had at least five active credit cards, with at least $7,600 in combined credit limit. Of the five known active cards, at least four were revealed to be maxed out, with at least $7400 in unpaid debt between the five cards. It was estimated that the minimum payment on Chris's known debt was at least $220 a month, and it was revealed that the only reason that Chris had been able to obtain the credit that he had was that, historically, he had almost always at least paid the minimum payment each month, although it was implied that he rarely if ever paid more than the minimum.

Credit Increase

In June 2016, Chris's credit card company raised his credit limit. Chris reacted to this news by blowing his "bonus" on Transformers only to later beg for money over Facebook while blaming his mother for "impulsively" spending more on their overdue bills than the minimum amount due.

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  Chris bragging about using his credit increase to buy Transformers.

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  Nine minutes later, Chris blaming his family's financial shortfalls on his mother's bill payments.

Payday loan

In early 2016, Arthur Spatchcock discovered that Chris had taken out a payday loan for $3,000.

Chris "borrowed" three thousand dollars. What he did with it is hazy, sure, but how do you think he bought all those lego sets for Lego Dimensions?

A payday loan charges extremely high interest rates (usually at least 400%), which does not bode well for Chris, due to his habit of only paying back minimal amounts at a time.

Looking ahead

See also: Financhu Crisis, Future section

At present, Chris is basically immune to the consequences of his own debts. The monthly tugboat technically cannot be garnished, money from financial enablers is squirreled away in Paypal or spent too quickly for the court to note, and his debts are unsecured as he does not have collateral in his name (14 Branchland Court is in the name of his parents).

However, the dominoes will begin to fall once Barbara passes away. Without her own tugboat to defray living costs, it is unlikely Chris will afford the bills to remain at home and must move to an apartment. And the damage to his credit rating and background check from so many debt judgements make it highly unlikely a landlord will take a chance on him.

In Virginia, creditors might theoretically force Barb into bankruptcy by filing an "involuntary petition": in reality, however, there are a lot of requirements that make such petition very unlikely. If the creditors somehow manage to force the Chandlers' into bankruptcy, the bank that owns 14 Branchland Court may think twice about letting the Chandlers' (or any other bankrupt household) stay, increasing the risk of the so-called 'Homeless Saga' becoming a reality.

Concerned followers have urged Chris to sign up for Section 8 housing soon since the waiting list may be long, as debt is irrelevant regarding Section 8 applications, though Chris has not bothered to do so, instead putting his faith in the Dimensional Merge to bail him out.

See also

• Chris and money
• Debt hearing (eyewitness account)
• Financhu Crisis