[amwhitman]

A judgement was settled against me several years ago and I accepted since I do owe the money. This past Oct. the wage garnishment began. I guess it took several years because I didn't make enough money for my check to be garnished at my previous job... I have no problem with this since the money is owed to them. However, they have doubled on the interest since the initial judgement and charged me twice for lawyer and court fees. Can they do this? If not, what can I do to stop this? I have almost paid the amount of the original judgement... :eek: :confused: :eek:

[twinkiedooter]

Aren't bill collectors wonderful? They can do whatever they want and get away with it. No, they can't double charge you... but guess what, you can only bring this to the judge's attention that they did that to you. You have to have proof of this, of course. Do you have the original paperwork with which to be able to send to the judge? Do you have detailed info on every time the garnishment was taken out from day one? If so, great, then you can bring this to the judge's attention yourself. You need to file paperwork with the Clerk's office and ask for a hearing so the Judge can look over all this paperwork, agree with you, and hopefully get your money back that you overpaid, or conversly apply that money to what you still owe. Be sure you calculate the interest rate properly also. They may not be able to do that either. Look at the original judgment where they got the garnishment against you in the first place as it will spell out all the terms of the garnishment in full with no surprises. But... if the attorney had to go back to court to get the garnishment re-done... then he may be able to tack on the new attorney fees. If he did not go back to court, then no, he can't just arbitrarily add those fees in again. Did you change jobs and the attorney had to re-do the garnishment to get your present employer to deduct from your check? He can't just keep using the same garnishment. He has to have it correctly addressed to your present employer. Lawyers are crafty little devils, you have to watch them very carefully.

[Fr_Chuck]

Unless the jdugement allowed additional collection fees, no it should not happen, you need to get a copy of the garnishment paperwork and if you believe it is wrong, file for an amendment to this in court.