Legal question about garnishment

[gsabc]

At least that's what I understood the term is. Please, no jokes about it. The short version is that HS still has an outstanding college loan and a sleazy bill collector has been after him. Because he is deaf and has no phone, the calls come to us. Late calls, multiple calls in a day (from different people), refusing to say why they're calling or lying about it, stuff like that. They even found BD's home number out in CA and called her at 5:30 AM - their office was on the east coast and they didn't bother checking the area code, though how they found out her number and the association with HS (with her new last name) is more than a little disturbing.

Anyway, the latest call threatens him with garnishment, which I'm assuming means garnisheeing (is that a word?) his wages. Since he works part-time at best, can't find a full-time job and is barely making it financially as it is, this would be a disaster. My question is whether this non-governmental company has the right to garnishee wages. This sort of thing is far outside my BOK.

I would also like to get the collection back into the Dept. of Education if we can and deal with them directly. I've told HS to deal with this many times, including when it was the Dept. of Ed. trying to contact him, and to have his social workers and the other folks who work with the Deaf community help him with it. I have no idea how far he took it (not far enough, apparently), and of course they can't tell me what's going on because he's over 18. This last threat, though, scares the crap out of me and him.

I appreciate any answer to the garnishment question you may offer. The rest is something we'll have to deal with ourselves.

[sunflower]

I don't know if it varies from state to state, but as far as I know in CT, yes they can garnish your wages, however, I don't think it can happen without a court order. I see the garnishment orders that come into our company and they are for various reasons - from back child support to dentist bills in collections. We get the garnishment order from the court and we act in accordance with it. So I think the collection agency would need to pursue a court action before this could occur.

As far as going back to deal with the Dept of Education, I don't know if that is an option anymore. Usually, a creditor will sell off their potential bad debt to the collection agency, and the creditor itself writes it off their books.

If I were you, I'd call the collection agency today. Try to work out a payment plan with them, because at this point, I think it's the best alternative.

[sunflower]

And as far as calling BD, she has a right to file a complaint (is it with the FCC? Whatever agency handles telemarketers and the do not call list) for the early hour of the call. I'm guessing that maybe when he filled out the application for the student loan, he probably used her name? From what I remember, I had to list 3 "references" which were supposed to be relatives not living with me or something like that. If he used her maiden name, it's not that hard to find her married name using USA People Search or something similar. Without even paying the fee, you can see people's names, and if you pay the fee you get phone numbers, addresses, etc. I'd imagine a collection agency would probably have the unlimited subscription to a site like that.

[wintergreen48]

In order to garnish wages, they have to get a judgment against the debtor, and then file the writ of garnishment (or whatever it is called). Assuming that they do both of those things, there are a number of applicable limits: most states specifically provide for certain exemptions from garnishment-- typically, the garnisher can not get more than a certain percentage of the wages (15% or 25% in most places), and in some places I think that there is a certain income level thta is exempt from garnishment entirely-- the purpose of garnishment is to make sure that deadbeats pay their debts, but not to punish or hurt people who simply do not have the money to pay.

More importantly, though, it sounds like there are other legal issues here. Under the federal Fair Debt Collector Practices Act, a third party debt collector (which is any person other than the actual creditor who contacts anyone about a debt) is subject to a LOT of legal limitations on what they can do, specifically including the times of day that they can call, what kinds of 'notices' they must provide, etc. Perhaps most importantly, they cannot contact anyone about the debt other than the debtor himself/herself, unless the debtor specifically authorizes the debt collector to speak to someone else (gets real interesting when a debt collector leaves a message on an answering machine and someone other than the debtor is in the place where the answering machine is located). Also, a debtor has a right to demand that the third party debt collector cease all contact, after which the debt collector may NOT contact the debtor AT ALL, except for one last contact in which the debt collector can acknowledge the request, and tell the debt collector what steps will next be taken. If the debt collector violates any of this stuff, the debt collector is subject to a lot of penalties, and this is a very fruitful area of law for debtors' attorneys, because the law provides for the debtor's attorney to be paid their full attorneys' fees, regardless of the actual 'damage' to the debtor from the violation. There is also a provision in the law that essentially provides for a 'bounty' for the debtor, who can pretty much collect $1,000 for each violation.

One famous case in New Jersey involved a debt collector who was not really a bad guy, just made a mistake (did not include all the necessary 'notices' in the first debt collection letter), and the debtor's attorney raised holy heck about it; the debt collector acknowledged that they had, indeed, made a mistake and offered to pay the debtor the $1,000 bounty, the debtor's attorney refused the offer and filed suit, and in the final judgment, won the $1,000 'bounty' (that the debt collector offered in the first place), plus attorneys' fees, which totalled $20,000 (which, of course, was the real reason why the debtor's attorneys pursued the litigation-- there was no benefit to the debtor, only to the attorney).

[TheCalvinator24]

I don't know the particulars of how much power student loan companies have. Most of the time, garnishment requires a court order, which would require them to file a lawsuit against your son first.

Maybe this is only true in Texas, but "garnishee" is considered archaic. The terms that are used these days are simply "garnish" or "attach."

[gsabc]

And as far as calling BD, she has a right to file a complaint (is it with the FCC? Whatever agency handles telemarketers and the do not call list) for the early hour of the call. I'm guessing that maybe when he filled out the application for the student loan, he probably used her name? From what I remember, I had to list 3 "references" which were supposed to be relatives not living with me or something like that. If he used her maiden name, it's not that hard to find her married name using USA People Search or something similar. Without even paying the fee, you can see people's names, and if you pay the fee you get phone numbers, addresses, etc. I'd imagine a collection agency would probably have the unlimited subscription to a site like that.

She's not on his references. There are only two, me and his grandmother. She's not listed anywhere on his paperwork at all, and certainly not with her married name, which is what makes the call to her so disturbing. They apparently investigated him and the rest of the immediate family. And I never use her home number. I'm not sure HS even has it.

Quick followup. From a call I made this AM, the sleazebags probably can garnishee his pay. (Am I using that word correctly? I learned it that way, not as "garnish" which to me is parsley.) The only way to get the loan back to the Dept. of Ed. is to make several months of payments on it. I have told him all this (and told him to deal with the Dept. in the first place, for all the good my advice did). I hope he will get some resolution on it soon.

[earendel]

Quick followup. From a call I made this AM, the sleazebags probably can garnishee his pay. (Am I using that word correctly? I learned it that way, not as "garnish" which to me is parsley.) The only way to get the loan back to the Dept. of Ed. is to make several months of payments on it. I have told him all this (and told him to deal with the Dept. in the first place, for all the good my advice did). I hope he will get some resolution on it soon.

Both "garnish" and "garnishee" are acceptable (according to Alex Trebek - this was the subject of a question on J! last week) but I believe the latter is a more archaic version.

On a related note, I have a friend who works for an educational institution. He told me that the word came down from on high that, given the bad economic news, my friend's office needed to be more aggressive in pursuing those who had student loans. This included threatening to turn the loan debt over to a collection agency. I suspect that those agencies, too, have been encouraged to redouble their efforts.

[DevilKitty100]

And as far as calling BD, she has a right to file a complaint (is it with the FCC? Whatever agency handles telemarketers and the do not call list) for the early hour of the call. I'm guessing that maybe when he filled out the application for the student loan, he probably used her name? From what I remember, I had to list 3 "references" which were supposed to be relatives not living with me or something like that. If he used her maiden name, it's not that hard to find her married name using USA People Search or something similar. Without even paying the fee, you can see people's names, and if you pay the fee you get phone numbers, addresses, etc. I'd imagine a collection agency would probably have the unlimited subscription to a site like that.

She's not on his references. There are only two, me and his grandmother. She's not listed anywhere on his paperwork at all, and certainly not with her married name, which is what makes the call to her so disturbing. They apparently investigated him and the rest of the immediate family. And I never use her home number. I'm not sure HS even has it.

Quick followup. From a call I made this AM, the sleazebags probably can garnishee his pay. (Am I using that word correctly? I learned it that way, not as "garnish" which to me is parsley.) The only way to get the loan back to the Dept. of Ed. is to make several months of payments on it. I have told him all this (and told him to deal with the Dept. in the first place, for all the good my advice did). I hope he will get some resolution on it soon.

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.

[MarleysGh0st]

DevilKitty never pulls her punches.

[gsabc]

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.

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.

[silverscreenselect]

Anyway, the latest call threatens him with garnishment, which I'm assuming means garnisheeing (is that a word?) his wages. Since he works part-time at best, can't find a full-time job and is barely making it financially as it is, this would be a disaster. My question is whether this non-governmental company has the right to garnishee wages. This sort of thing is far outside my BOK.

Unless someone has a good steady job, creditors rarely resort to garnishing wages because what they get out of it is rarely worth the cost. As someone has pointed out, state law limits garnishment to a percentage of the total (usually about 25%, higher in support cases) and the creditor needs an attorney to file the suit (who takes the case on a contingency basis) and has to have already collected a judgment for the underlying debt. People with no steady source of income can defeat garnishment fairly easily by just changing jobs and maintaining a low profile.

As with most collection agency tactics, they use the threat of legal action as opposed to actual legal action in order to try to get results.

[peacock2121]

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

[peacock2121]

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.

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.

[Vague Mini]

He came for advice, not a lecture.

[peacock2121]

He came for advice, not a lecture.

I thought I gave advice.

[gsabc]

Tell the collectors he doesn't live with you, you don't know they can contact him and to stop calling you.

That middle part is not true, obviously. I'm assuming you meant "how they can contact him".

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.

The loan application dates from when he did live with us. For more recent applications, i.e., for jobs, he needs the phone number because the applications require one. No one seems to understand it if your primary means of communication are all online.

It's not your problem, unless you make it so (which it seems you have).

He's still my son, and I'll worry about him until one of us dies. I try to steer him towards those people with more experience dealing with the problems involved, mainly because I often don't have that experience myself. If I can help by giving him and them more information to work with, then I will.

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

period

I almost wish I had, at this point. Almost. Never imagined he'd bomb out of college, though, speaking of areas outside my BOK.

[littlebeast13]

He came for advice, not a lecture.

He came to the wrong place then.....

lb13

[gsabc]

It appears that garnishment is a convoluted process which takes some time to perform. There are also limits on how much can be taken.

At present, I am just gathering information to pass along to HS. Primary item I'm seeking is a TDD number, which I have been unable to find anywhere. I will probably end up calling their regular number and asking for one.

I am also again urging HS to deal with this. Possibly now that it may become a financial problem for him, he'll be more diligent in seeking a resolution with the help of others.

[Vague Mini]

We arranged for our neighbor who is a credit lawyer to help us out when my m-i-l got in over her head with her spending. He negotiated with the creditiors and we paid a reduced amount to settle and made sure she couldn't run up the debts again. However...

One of those collection places bought up the excused debt and tried to collect from her. The letters and calls had her in tears with the threats. So we talked to our lawyer neighbor and his advice was: ignore the letters. If anyone called, tell them they bought a bad debt and the statute of limitations had expired and basically to go pound sand.

Now, this situation is a current debt and your son has wages to garnish, unlike my m-i-l, but the collections people need to stop calling you. Either your son is too old for them to be dealing with you, or he isn't. No having it both ways. I understand you wanting to do everything you can to help since one of my s-i-l's is deaf and sporadically employed, but fortunately she has a nice chunk of cash from my f-i-l's estate to keep her afloat. Plus I know I'll have to keep a close eye on Rain Man after he's 18 and legally responsible for himself. He's already asking how you learn to book a hotel room and he said he's saving his birthday money for appliances and furniture he'll need when he's a grownup. He just turned 14. Even Stephen can't look beyond gas money for a future car...

[gsabc]

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.

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.

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 don't even want to call them to get the TDD number, though it looks like that will be necessary.

Frankly, I'm dismayed that HS has not dealt with this before. We have been forwarding him messages and mail about it for quite some time. But he has to learn the consequences of letting things fester. I'm not willing to bail him out anymore, one of the reasons why he's no longer living with us.

[SportsFan68]

I saw a bunch of these in my HR days, and I can assure you of two things. First, debt collection comes to wage garnishment only as a last resort. It's very unsettling to all concerned, and even if you get the required court order, it is no sure thing. We often refused garnishments because the court order would have expired by the time the old garnishments ahead of them were paid off. I know that's not the case with your son, I'm just saying it's not the easy money for sleazy collection agencies it might appear to be at first glance.

Second, the sleazeballs in the business will stop at nothing to get what they consider to be their money. One local sleazebucket, who's now out of business (around here, anyway), was legend with the local HR group. He would stop in to an HR office, demand employment information on a soon-to-be-garnished employee, and claim that he had no problem getting the same info "down the street." He would call and ask for someone he knew no longer worked for us and claim to be entitled to forwarding information. Long before I got into the HR business, I took a call at my parents' house looking for my future ex sis-in-law, who along with her roommate had stolen and were using an AT&T calling card number, and before I knew what I was doing had told the caller that she was at work at a local dentist and could I take a message. I didn't even give them the name of the dentist. That was all they needed to track her down at work, and I'll bet that someone just as innocently gave your sleazebucket the info he needed to find your daughter.

My advice is to pay it off and collect what you can from your son later.

. . . Edited to say CANCEL THAT. I see you're not willing to do that. Nevermind.

[gsabc]

My advice is to pay it off and collect what you can from your son later.

. . . Edited to say CANCEL THAT. I see you're not willing to do that. Nevermind.

The willingness is directed by our history with HS and the current economy. I won't go into the history. Our retirement funds took the same hit as most everyone else's. GW has become very risk-averse and is unwilling to spend money on anything or anyone but us. So unless we get the right six numbers for tonight's MegaMillions drawing, HS is on his own for the debt.

[ToLiveIsToFly]

I have a reasonably common name. A couple years ago I started getting collections letters and calls about a repossessed car. I had horrible, horrible financial habits throughout my 20s (and have since both cleaned up and paid off all the outstanding stuff) but I really thought if I had a car repossessed I'd remember it. I didn't. It was someone else with the same name.

We had a bunch of really frustrating conversations that went along the lines of:
"I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong Robert Goldstein here."
"Give me your social security number and I'll tell you if it's you we're looking for."
"Like hell I'm giving you that"
"Then you'll hear from our lawyer" or "I'll have the sheriff arrest you" etc

Eventually I got someone to give me the last 4 of the SSN of the person they wanted. It wasn't me. They believed me. The letters and calls stopped for a while. A few months later a different collection agency started in about the same thing. I started doing all of my communication with them via certified mail. They stopped.

I realize your situation is very different, because you have a legitimate debt (well, your son does) and I didn't. I found the following links very helpful:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/debt-co ... 252961.php
http://consumerist.com/consumer/tools/s ... 279461.php
http://consumerist.com/consumer/fair-de ... 300720.php

A couple things I think I understand:
If a collection agency is calling you about something, you can no longer get anything done through the original creditor.
Before you pay a collection agency, make them prove they actually own the debt. If they're sleazy enough to break the law (and some of the things you're describing I think are illegal), who's to say they're not sleazy enough to try and collect on a debt they don't own. The worst thing would be if you pay them off and the debt doesn't go away.

[ghostjmf]

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.


On the receiving end of the bill-collector thing, I still get calls from a local music school looking for a housemate who left the state over 5 years ago. I have no problem giving them what little info I have on said housemate, which is the state they're living in (US state, not "of mind"). I guess I should be very glad the music school has not hired the sleazeball bill collectors who would try to stick me with the bill. The ones they do hire are bad enough, believe me. But I give them the little info I have because I know the housemate did go to their school, & as far as I'm concerned, should be paying them for it in some way. Thing is, I've given them my "little info" several times already, & they're still calling me. We did share the phone, back in those pre-every-one's-got-a-cell-phone days.

[gsabc]

A couple things I think I understand:
If a collection agency is calling you about something, you can no longer get anything done through the original creditor.
Before you pay a collection agency, make them prove they actually own the debt. If they're sleazy enough to break the law (and some of the things you're describing I think are illegal), who's to say they're not sleazy enough to try and collect on a debt they don't own. The worst thing would be if you pay them off and the debt doesn't go away.

Thanks for the links (and thank you to all the others offering help and advice). I think this is what's called "debt validation", and we're going to try that. My call to the Dept. of Ed. specifically mentioned this agency as their collection people, though. That said, they do have the reputation for not passing on any money they get paid, so even if he makes payments, getting the loan back to the DoEd might be an issue.