Ask Me Help Desk - Garnishing wages

Garnishing wages

A collection atty has contacted me about collection on a credit card debt. I received a summons to court for this. Instead of going to court I agreed to pay $100 a month. I signed a paper to do so but now I have second thoughts that I would be paying it to the wrong person and that it will actually never be paid off. So I wrote email to the atty. That I want more evidence from him about the acct. He wrote me back that he will begin garnishing my wages. So I have 2 questions. Does he himself have the power to garnish my wages and if he does have that power... will it be for the amt of $100 a month or the whole amt of the debt? Thanks for the help. Patti

First, you should have went to court, they got a default judgement against you, so they are allowed to garnish your wages to the full amount allowed by your state law, no one cares about hardships in court, only the law, some states only allow an amount above min wage and so on due to hardship but that is statue law and you do not have to go to court to get that enforced that will be part of the order.

If you are current, with the payments, then you have a defense, if you are one day late with your payments, they may garnish

It sounds like the attorney works for a company that bought your bad debt from the original lender.

Your signature on the agreement to pay $100 will only strengthen their case. They can go to court and get the garnishment which will add court and attorney fees to the debt.

From the Web - Google Search: Garnishment Small Claims Court Illinois
WAGE GARNISHMENT:
The Defendant must be gainfully employed and you must have the home address of Defendant and the name and address of their employer. Garnishment will cause a certain amount of money to be withheld from their paycheck. The maximum amount subject to collection is l5% of weekly gross pay. Under Illinois law the Defendant must also make over a certain amount of money in order for garnishment to occur (45 times the minimum wage of net earnings per week). It is up to you to go to court and obtain an order for garnishment of wages.

I would assume the amount subject to garnishment is the same in the higher levels of Court.

If you made a settlement to pay a fixed amount at $100.00 per month, the attorney should have contacted the court and registered the settlement. Check

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iknowalotofstuff

From the Web - Google Search: Garnishment Small Claims Court Illinois
WAGE GARNISHMENT:
The Defendant must be gainfully employed and you must have the home address of Defendant and the name and address of their employer. Garnishment will cause a certain amount of money to be withheld from their paycheck. The maximum amount subject to collection is l5% of weekly gross pay. Under Illinois law the Defendant must also make over a certain amount of money in order for garnishment to occur (45 times the minimum wage of net earnings per week). It is up to you to go to court and obtain an order for garnishment of wages.

I would assume the amount subject to garnishment is the same in the higher levels of Court.

If you made a settlement to pay a fixed amount at $100.00 per month, the attorney should have contacted the court and registered the settlement. Check

Again, I don't know where you are getting this info. You are obviously cutting and pasting from somewhere and not citing a source.

The only way in the US (and I realize you are in Canada) to STOP a lawsuit is to withdraw the papers. The Attorney had every right to continue to Judgment unless the OP and the creditor SIGNED an Agreement that the creditor would not proceed to Judgment in exchange for payments on a set schedule.

If the Attorney withdraws the lawsuit based on an agreement, the creditor does not pay and the Statute expires the ATTORNEY has committed an act of malpractice.

It's obviously a good thing that the creditor did not because now there is no danger of being out of Statute and the OP has no intention of honoring the first two agreements - the original account AND the subsequent "settlement."

Also I was reading somewhere that they can also freeze your bank acct. Is that true?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pattijo55

Also i was reading somewhere that they can also freeze your bank acct. Is that true?

Yes, it's true in Illinois.

If that's so... how do they find out what bank you go use? Is it all court appointed? P

Quote:

Originally Posted by pattijo55

So i have 2 questions. Does he himself have the power to garnish my wages and if he does have that power....will it be for the amt of $100 a month or the whole amt of the debt? Thanks for the help. Patti

If the attorney went ahead with the suit and obtained a judgement then yes he can both garnish your wages and attach other cash assets. There are many ways they can find where you bank.

That being said. The first thing you need to do is find out if he did get a default judgement. The summons you received has a docket number. You can check with the court that issued the summons and find out the status.

If a default judgement was obtained, you can request that it be vacated on the grounds that you had a settlement agreement in place. May or may not work. If you do get the judgement vacated, then you can request that the plaintiff verify the debt and their right to collect on it.