Judgment/Suit Update

[treehugger1]

I thought I would provide an update on my collection issues.

I have six paid judgments and two unpaid. One of the unpaid was filed back in December, and the other unpaid was filed in April. I have spoken to both attorneys regarding my employment situation and permanent 15% student loan garnishment. I've gone out of my way to suggest they get in line for wage garnishment, but no actions have been taken. Both of these are national credit card accounts. I have no idea why they don't seem to be in a hurry to act on the judgments. I can only assume that the collection attorneys were paid outright for their work and they did not sue based on commissions. Maybe they don't care anymore. Just guessing. I believe FlyinBroke has also commented on judgments where no actions have been taken.

On Friday, I went down to the courthouse and discovered another suit had been filed. I have not been served yet, but suspect to be in a few days. The new suit is from the same out-of-state attorney who sued me for a chiti account. The new suit is related to a major department store CC but chiti is the bank behind the card. As mentioned in the past, this attorney firm does a lot of suits for chiti, they are members of my state BAR, and they appear to play by the rules of my state collection and court system. Since they do not seem eager to follow through on their other judgment, I have to wonder what they get out of the suit. Once again I believe they might be paid hourly for their work.

The suits here allow for a fixed award for attorney fees and other court costs. So, unless chiti has already paid the attorney firm, I would think they would move toward wage garnishment. But, nothing yet.

The judgments do allow for accrual of interest, so perhaps they just prefer to let them sit and grow interest.

Do others have experiences such as mine?

[catleg]

I think you're on the right track, it's all based on what behavior is incentivized.

Chase combined 3 accounts into one suit against my wife. OTOH, we got sued by Citi 5 separate times for 5 accounts. What was a little bit different from your experience is that, for the first suit that they got a default judgment, they immediately filed for a wage garnishment against my wife. No debtor exam, just boom.

But NJ has different wage garnishment rules than OR. Here they're ongoing.

It would not surprise me if they reduce their claims to judgment for the purpose of selling them. Debt buyers must pay better for judgments, I wonder what the cutover point is that makes it worthwhile (since there is expense associated).

It's also occurred to me that it may be a policy issue, "pour l'encouragement de les autres" as they would say in the French Foreign Legion.

[treehugger1]

I think they may want to sell the judgments in the future. But, that leads to a potentially new issue. In order to get a garnishment writ, they either have to file with my court clerk's signature and stamp, or they need to be an attorney registered with my state bar. The clerks in my local court are very careful about who gets to file a writ of garnishment. My payroll office is also very detail oriented and dots all the i's and crosses the t's before they follow through on a writ.

[tay666]

Just guessing. I believe FlyinBroke has also commented on judgments where no actions have been taken.

I have no clue either.
Here in OH, we have 5 judgements now. Would be 6 but one of the companies that got a default judgement never filed the final paperwork and lost the judgement.
Couple of the judgements are well over a year old.
As of yet, absolutely no attempts to garnish wages or raid bank accounts.