Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees have a dirty job in consumer cases. Sometimes they have to be harsh to do it right. But if you're playing by the rules, they hope it will be as painless as possible. Trustees don't exist to make you feel bad for having to file bankruptcy. That's the first most important thing to realize. Many of them represent people filing bankruptcy. They know most debtors regret having to file and they hope to make the process as painless as possible. The trustee’s job is to make sure creditors get paid what they are entitled to and at the debtor is doing what they're supposed to. In a typical Chapter 7 case, they get paid only $60 from the debtors filing fee and nothing if the debtor qualified to file for free. They don't get paid anything more unless they collect money for the creditors.

When being involved in a bankruptcy filing, no one should be surprised going in about the deal. But one of the little understood factors that weighs on a trustees mind is the downside of the job. If he fails to defend creditor interests, they can sue him. The trustee has to be tough with people who won't cooperate with them. If you go into a case knowing you'll lose your car, for example, and then you change your mind, he has to do what's best for the creditors. It's not because he is unsympathetic, he probably is. But he has no choice if it would pay a meaningful amount to creditors. And of course he must answer to the Bankruptcy court.

Some debts can also be grounds for criminal prosecution. The most common example is writing a bad check. If a creditor files a criminal complaint after a bankruptcy is filed, do they violate the automatic stay? As with most complicated legal questions, the answer is maybe. Typically these bad check cases developed when someone simply makes a mistake and doesn't realize they are writing a check for more than what they have or where the check is actually a loan against the post dated check. Depending on the location, both can be a crime. In many places, however, the writing and accepting of the post dated check which later bounces, without the consumer trying to avoid paying it, like closing the account or stopping payment, is not a crime. As part of a general financial meltdown, these debts are part of what leads to many people filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The job of the bankruptcy court trustee is to make sure the creditors get as much money as possible from the bankruptcy. So the trustee has an incentive to dig and find out if there are assets which are unprotected from creditors or which can be recovered to benefit. But they assume when you file bankruptcy that you are accepting the deal that's part of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you give up any assets which the law doesn't protect freely in return for the fresh start. Most people who file Chapter 7 bankruptcy don't lose any of their property that they are trying to protect.