Question on Wage Garnishment/Lawsuit

[MarieT]

There's an article in the May10th issue of Family Circle magazine (page 125) about debt collector's dirty tricks.

It says that "wages can only be garnished when an original creditor takes you to court and wins a judgment against you" (my emphasis)

We do have an attorney that I have been referring the creditors to but wage garnishment has been a huge worry for me as I do not think my husband's employer would be too happy about that.

So my question is...do I even need to worry at all about wage garnishment since the original credit card companies have already written off the debt? The calls I have been getting are from the collection agencies (not the original credit card companies) and one of those has already gone to a second collection agency so they were calling me even though I had told the original collection agency we had an attorney. (The original collection agency probaly sold it off the second collection agency as soon as I told them we have an attorney and possible BK!)

[2manybills]

No that is not true. The creditor assigns the debt to a collection agency and they can get a judgment against you and attach your wages.

[Exployer1234]

Some companies will sue quickly and some will wait. Just because the debt has been charged off does not mean that you do not owe the debt. All it means is that they have sold the debt off to a collection agency.

I was taken to court after 1 year of non-payment on a car loan. I showed up to court and was asked to speak with the creditors attorney. Piece of advice don't sign anything from the creditors attorney. Let the case go infront of the judge. Otherwise if you do anything from the creditors attorney they will start garnishment very quickly. State's vary on how much they can take out, in my case they pushed the garnishment through very quickly because I signed something from the creditor's attorney, and because I believed the creditors attorney when they said they could work with me on payments. They lied on both cases and started taking out 25% of my pay. I do not make much right now since I lost my job a year and a half ago and I took a very low paying job. I had to go ahead and file so they did not get a dime.

Plus if they do a garnishment interest is still charged on the debt. Normally it is 10% each month.

[SMinGA]

Original creditors can sue; original creditors can sell the debt and the new debt owner can sue. In other situations the original creditor assigns it to a collection agency, still the account is owned by the original creditor. The original creditor can still sue, as it can always pull the account back from the collection agency.

When you notified a collection agency that you were thinking bankruptcy they probably sent it back to the original creditor deeming it uncollectable. The original can then send it to another agency if it wants to...

Family Circle is probably not the best resource for legal advice... The point (perhaps) that they were trying to make is a credit card debt cannot garnish your wages without first filing a lawsuit and being awarded a judgment.

[WhatMoney]

The "original creditor only" part of the article is simply wrong. Anyone who obtains a judgment against you can garnish your wages. The owner of a judgment does not have to be the OC.

Here's the page - they are talking about dirty tricks when talking to bill collectors and it is under "Dirty Trick #4".

http://www.familycircle-digital.com/...5?pg=125#pg127

[MarieT]

Thanks for al the responses....I guess Family Circle should research a bit better! Guess I can't relax a bit after all but we will be at least finalizing when we are going to file very soon. I can't imagine since I did refer them tyo my attorney when they called that they would proceed with a lawsuit. It seems it would just be a big waste of their time.