I have received a notice of garnishment from a payday loan company. Yes, I do owe them money which I have been unable to pay. Now they have apparently gone to court and have won the right to garnish my wages. The Notice of garnishment says that they can garnish up to 65% of my wages plus they have added 100.00 to my total for court cost.. My question is, #1 I didn't think payday loan companies could garnish someone's wages, can they? #2 Isn't there a maximum that they can garnish? Is that maximum 65% which would be 3 quarters of my check? Help what should I do?

I don't know how they could do this without taking you to small claims court first. I would like to be enlightened here too and maybe the experts will chime in.

What made you think they couldn't garnish wages? Though I doubt if they can take 65%. Before they can garnish wages, however, they have to take you to court UNLESS your loan agreement with them permits it. Its very possible that the contract you signed gives them permission to garnish your wages for non payment. Whether that's legal or not, I'm not sure.

But you said they "have apparently gone to court". So I'm assuming that you received some paperwork indicating you were being sued or the garnishment order came from a court. If so, then obviously a court of ruled they were entitled to garnish your wages. I still don't understand why you would think otherwise.

By the way 65% is not 3/4 (that would be 75%). As far as I know, most states cap garnishments at 25%. But, again, your agreement with them may permit more. You really need to read the contract carefully.

Actually Scott in most of the states I am used to the max they can garnish is that 50 to 65 percent if you are unmarried with no family.
Then they can only take the 25 percent if you are married with a family.
*** We get most of our workers with garnishments for child support, bad loans and the such where I used to work

I do know some that max at 25 for everyone but this isn't ot a universal rule.
Some states even have rules if your check is under a certain amount they can not garnish. But the garnishment order from the court will spell out the rules that the company is to follow very exact ( not always clear but ever exact)

But as noted there can not be a garnishment without a court case for a judgement ( unless he signed an agreement to allow them to garnish his pay if he failed to pay, I have heard of this at two or three payday loan places)

You can attempt to file a motion to overturn garnishment if they did not legally serve you paperwork.