I am writing with hope that I can find a way out of this situation without losing my car or having to claim bankruptcy.

SITUATION:
1. I am a self employed resident of Massachusetts and had a Chase Manhattan credit card issued to me in March 2002 with a $10,000 credit limit. After a divorce and birth of my child, I am now in a tight financial situation and unable to pay. According to my credit report, it seems the charged off the debt in March 2004 at about $11,000.

2. I regularly received notices from creditors who purchased the debt from Chase but due to financial difficulties, I ignored the notices.

3. Recently I received from Harvard Funding LLC, (an assignee of Chase) an official summons to respond to a demand for full payment of the debt in the amount of over $11,000. Again, I did not respond as I do not have the means to pay this debt.

4. I then received last week a "Judgment for Plaintiff(s) by Default" and they are now asking for just over $17,000.

5. Today I received a letter from an area attorney representing Harvard Funding and they are saying that unless payment arrangement is made within 10 days, they will institute a post judgement collection remedy against me that may include a sheriff's seizure and sale of my car, and other assets that do not apply to my situation today.

QUESTIONS:

1. Because I have no way of paying this debt off or even making payments at this time, will my car be seized for sale by the Sheriff as they are threatening? The registration for my car is in my name but the financing is a joint account.

2. Assuming they are not able to seize my car, will I be forced to file chapter 7 to get the creditors to stop, or will I be ordered by law to serve jail time or some other stiff penalty?

Please share your thoughts on this matter as I am a single mom and deeply concerned about this situation.
Best,

CreditProblems

progunr

You don't have to worry about going to jail, America does not have debtors prison.

They had to sue you to obtain a judgment, did you receive notice of the court date or was that what the demand you spoke of was?

There are some exemptions from the levy of personal property, you need to check the law where you live to find out what they are.

If you are employed, and they find out where, they can garnish your wages to satisfy the judgment.

Good luck!

CreditProblems

Hi, thanks for your response!

The demand I received was a summons to respond within 10 days or they would be granted authority to push forward toward legal collection. I then received the judgment I mentioned in my first post.

I am an independent contractor but did list one of my major contracts on a credit application on something recent, not Chase but I wonder if they will research to find the main office for that contract and contact them to attempt garnishment? Or is garnishment done through the court system?

Thank you so much for your help!

progunr

You should check the "demand" notice.
Did it indicate a court date or hearing date for your case?
Did it indicate that failure to answer would result in a default judgment?
I believe you have to be served notice of a court date. If you were not legally served notice
of the court date, you may be able to have the judgment dismissed.
Garnishment is done through the court system and it is remotely possible that they could
locate your contract but I'm not sure that they can garnish that. Most garnishment is applied to regular income, salary, or hourly wage employee.
I would find out if you were legally served notice of the court date and go from there.

Good Luck!