Legal question about garnishment

[ghostjmf]

I second & third & 4th & etc the advice "pay the people owed, not the sleazy collection agency".

We get collection letters at my job all the time; we submit, within my dept, the paperwork/electronic receipt agreeing to pay on time , & its up to RichU's centralized payment facility to, using that paperwork/electronic receipt pay within the "net 30 days" terms most vendors want. Need I say more. I look up the invoice, note that it was eventually paid, to the right company at the right address & place the collection letter in the circular file. I also call the vendor, give them the information I just looked up, & politely ask them to call off the dogs, when I have time.

[eyégor]

Yada, yada, yada......of course they can garnish his income.......and they will.

The only problem I'm having with this scenario though is why you and your son fully acknowledge owing the debt, fully acknowledge it was ignored in the beginning, fully acknowledge it is still owed way beyond delinquency (I guess hoping it would go away) and yet the people who are trying to collect a legitimate debt are automatically the "sleazeballs"
because it would be inconvenient for your son to repay the loan.

It's a bit late for the whining now.

DevilKitty never pulls her punches.

Tell the collectors he doesn't live with you, you don't know they can contact him and to stop calling you. Then tell him to no longer give out your number on applications. He can get his own number that he won't/can't answer - it's the same as giving them your number. It's not your problem, unless you make it so (which it seems you have).

Unless you co-signed - if that is the case - pay your bill.


period

The name is applied for their tactics. I am sure there are many responsible collection agencies who follow the laws involved. I would be happy to deal with one of them. This company is not in that group. If you do an Internet search on their name, you find dozens if not hundreds of links to complaints about them and an equal number of links to lawyers willing to sue them on your behalf because of their methods of operation.

I have done what I am willing to do to have HS deal with the situation. He is over 18 and has been out on his own for several years. He gives out our phone number for contact because he does not have one himself and most applications require it. All he has is an e-mail address and an AIM screen name. We forward him all messages that come in. How he deals with them is his business and his responsibility. We did not co-sign the loan. There's a limit to what we will do on his behalf.

One of these is a lie.

I am always impressed with the degree of compassion displayed on this bored for consequences that are, or might be, the result of some action of the afflicted.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

[ToLiveIsToFly]

Not to me. The operative phrase is "what I am willing to do". With this particular company, that is severely limited. I likely would be willing to do more if they were more forthcoming with information, like leaving full messages with the reason for the call or even telling me the company's name when I explicitly ask for either one of those.

I think the same links I gave you before talk about why they won't do those things. It's definitely illegal for them to leave full messages with the reason for the call with a third party.

[Bob Juch]

I have a somewhat different situation: I've been dealing with a collection agency that sent me a collection notice for something like $800 for an Airtouch Cellular bill. I contacted them and told them I'd never had an account with anyone other than AT&T. They said the account was from 1995! It has never appeared on my credit report. I told them it certainly wasn't mine; it was probably a computer error. They then sent me a form letter for me to claim identity theft. I sent the blank form back saying I couldn't claim identity theft as I had no evidence that someone else had applied for the account in my name. They sent me a letter saying they hadn't got a response from me, again asking for the whole amount "owed". I called them and they said that since I hadn't filled out the form, my response wasn't processed. I'm going another round with them now.

Since this account is from 1995, can I just tell them to take a long walk and forget about this?

[peacock2121]

Yada, yada, yada......of course they can garnish his income.......and they will.

The only problem I'm having with this scenario though is why you and your son fully acknowledge owing the debt, fully acknowledge it was ignored in the beginning, fully acknowledge it is still owed way beyond delinquency (I guess hoping it would go away) and yet the people who are trying to collect a legitimate debt are automatically the "sleazeballs"
because it would be inconvenient for your son to repay the loan.

It's a bit late for the whining now.

DevilKitty never pulls her punches.

Tell the collectors he doesn't live with you, you don't know they can contact him and to stop calling you. Then tell him to no longer give out your number on applications. He can get his own number that he won't/can't answer - it's the same as giving them your number. It's not your problem, unless you make it so (which it seems you have).

Unless you co-signed - if that is the case - pay your bill.


period

The name is applied for their tactics. I am sure there are many responsible collection agencies who follow the laws involved. I would be happy to deal with one of them. This company is not in that group. If you do an Internet search on their name, you find dozens if not hundreds of links to complaints about them and an equal number of links to lawyers willing to sue them on your behalf because of their methods of operation.

I have done what I am willing to do to have HS deal with the situation. He is over 18 and has been out on his own for several years. He gives out our phone number for contact because he does not have one himself and most applications require it. All he has is an e-mail address and an AIM screen name. We forward him all messages that come in. How he deals with them is his business and his responsibility. We did not co-sign the loan. There's a limit to what we will do on his behalf.

One of these is a lie.

I am always impressed with the degree of compassion displayed on this bored for consequences that are, or might be, the result of some action of the afflicted.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

That was sarcasm, right?

[DevilKitty100]

Yada, yada, yada......of course they can garnish his income.......and they will.

The only problem I'm having with this scenario though is why you and your son fully acknowledge owing the debt, fully acknowledge it was ignored in the beginning, fully acknowledge it is still owed way beyond delinquency (I guess hoping it would go away) and yet the people who are trying to collect a legitimate debt are automatically the "sleazeballs"
because it would be inconvenient for your son to repay the loan.

It's a bit late for the whining now.

DevilKitty never pulls her punches.

Tell the collectors he doesn't live with you, you don't know they can contact him and to stop calling you. Then tell him to no longer give out your number on applications. He can get his own number that he won't/can't answer - it's the same as giving them your number. It's not your problem, unless you make it so (which it seems you have).

Unless you co-signed - if that is the case - pay your bill.


period

One of these is a lie.

I am always impressed with the degree of compassion displayed on this bored for consequences that are, or might be, the result of some action of the afflicted.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

That was sarcasm, right?

I'm equally impressed by afflicted erudite riddles.

Nurse Feelgood has the day off.

[MarleysGh0st]

I am always impressed with the degree of compassion displayed on this bored for consequences that are, or might be, the result of some action of the afflicted.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I made an observation about the bluntness of DevilKitties' reply. No stones were handled.

[SportsFan68]

My Dad as Domestic Relations Referee ordered garnishment of wages frequently; he's the person from whom I learned the word (if anyone's really interested in my vocabulary!). He was ordering the garnishment of wages of sleazeballs who didn't pay child support, & the order was definitely a court order. The sleazeballs then frequently fled to states that didn't have reciprocal agreements about these court orders with Ohio.

Child support in Colorado is a different animal. Employers are required to turn in a list of all new hires within the past month to the PTB in charge of tracking down deadbeat parents. Subject to some limits which are now outside my experience because they all changed right before I left HR, deadbeats could be garnished up to 50% of their disposable income, 65% if they were in arrears. I can say that I never saw one hit 65% because the limits always kicked in first. For a first-timer, it was very scary, and I wish I had $5 for everybody who sailed in to the office in tears lying about the wage garnishment notice being the first they'd heard of how much they owed.

The other thing that tended to happen was that the deadbeat would simply quit on the spot. They'd get one last non-garnished paycheck and would be down the road to Arizona or California -- not that they would tell us where they were going, because they knew we would tell the child support people. I think that's why the PTB changed the limits -- 50% of disposable income was crippling to many people who were living paycheck to paycheck, and they would quit and try to start over in another state. Not that we had any sympathy for them, but there was no way to make them stay in a job either.

[silverscreenselect]

Since this account is from 1995, can I just tell them to take a long walk and forget about this?

Any type of unsecured debt, whether it's a contract or an account receivable would probably have a statute of limitations of 4-6 years maximum, depending on the state where you live.

[gsabc]

I am always impressed with the degree of compassion displayed on this bored for consequences that are, or might be, the result of some action of the afflicted.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I made an observation about the bluntness of DevilKitties' reply. No stones were handled.

And I did not take offense. The term "sleazeball" was appended to this particular collection agency and no other. They need to learn the phrase "You catch more flies with honey ...". This fly, anyway.

I have done what I can over the period involved, short of physical violence, to get HS to respond to the owners of the loan, whoever they may be. He's over 21, on his own (more or less) and responsible for his own action or inaction. What I have stated here is the synopsis, not the unabridged version. You won't see that here.

It's still hard on GW and me. We're parents. Worrying about your children is part of the job description. Doesn't matter how old they are. My 90-year-old mother STILL worries about me. I'm her baby, after all.

[silverscreenselect]

I have done what I can over the period involved, short of physical violence, to get HS to respond to the owners of the loan, whoever they may be. He's over 21, on his own (more or less) and responsible for his own action or inaction. What I have stated here is the synopsis, not the unabridged version. You won't see that here.

We have gotten hassled by collection agencies about debts our daughter owes. She has lived with us from time to time when she's been down on her luck but hasn't been here for over a year now.

My response whenever one of them calls is to cut off the spiel and let them know point blank, "If you think {daughter} owes you money, I suggest you take it up with her." Click. Disconnect.

Collection agencies want you to listen and be worried about whatever they have to say. Once you let them know you're not interested, they move on.

[ToLiveIsToFly]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/busin ... ss&emc=rss

[DadofTwins]

The Federal Trade Commission is the agency with oversight of bill collection practices. I've had to contact them a couple of times about bill collectors who call me looking for the people who used to have our phone number.

Contacting "un-co-signed" family members about someone's debt is definitely a violation of the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and may even be actionable.