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Subject: bank acct garnishment in Pa
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Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:45 pm
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| My acct was recently"frozen" by a creditor. W/ an attny it is a big enough battle, but w/out one, nearly impossible to get unfrozen until pd in full. There is some law about garnishing a joint account when the judgement is aginst only one person, which is my case, but it can take quite some time before they have to release it. My attny offered some wonderful advice, such as keeping less in the account, having 2 accounts through a big and a small bank, paying by money order to ANY creditor, and for those who do keep the money in the bank, use a small bank. Those accounts are harder to find, BUT not impossible.If you are in a position that you truly cannot pay, you should consider bankruptcy. Though it is not always desireable, for those of us who have come across hard times and aren't trying to cheat the system or steal, sometimes it is the only option to avoid the chaos and devastation. We have managed for years to not file, but we may be facing it now. It doesn't always mean you're a great big loser. We are not wasteful spenders. Due to some family crisis, my husband and I were forced to live on our cards for nearly a yr. When I lost my job, we were unable to pay. Sadly, this is happening all over the country right now. If this is our case, or yours, let it be a lesson, and a stepping stone, and just avoid the use of credit in the future. I recently read that paying cash for everything makes you spend less money. Also, just a final note... if you have an att., they can sometimes sue for violating the collections laws. Good luck to all. |
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Ruthie
Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Ruthie's page
Posts: 58
1201 Magic Points
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Subject: Penna Statue of limitations
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Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:13 am
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| Can you tell me if there is a statue of limitations on medical debt? My daughter has two children and they are 2 yrs and one is 3 mo. old. She has bill collectors harrassing her day and night demanding money for a miscarraige at a hospital over 4 years ago. She told them that her x boyfriend said they were paid and that he was the one who signed her in, Is there a limit on this? Ruthie |
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Ruthie
Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Ruthie's page
Posts: 58
1201 Magic Points
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Subject: Garnishments?
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Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:30 am
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| It has to be a court judgement thru proper procedures. I know that they can get them I just don't know how. If an electronic draft gets thru dispute it right away, with your back. Ask for there written authorization. If they don't have it from you or the judge, then you can sue for violation of the privacy act and fair credit collections act. We all need to alert our Atty general's offices for these accts. T'm sure with enough petitions, we the people can take back our country and tell them all where to stick it. They get away with it because we don't look and do anything about it. Go to your bank. Make them prove it or pay you back. Hope I helped. Ruthie By the way I was answering about the credit card judgements. |
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Marine 1
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Subject: PA Wage Garnisment
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:22 pm
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| If you live and work in the Great State of Pennsylvania. It is in violation of State Wage Garnisment law for a collection agency to even threaten you with wage garnisment. |
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Marine 1
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Subject: PA Wage Garnisment
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 1:27 pm
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| If you live and work in the Great State of Pennsylvania. It is in violation of State Wage Garnisment law for a collection agency to even threaten you with wage garnisment. |
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goodnatured
Joined: 03 Nov 2007
goodnatured's page
Posts: 4007
1224 Magic Points
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:28 pm
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| yes Pennsylvania is very strict on what can be garnished out of a pay check, this state does allow child support and taxes but for child support it requires a court order, tax collectors can simply send a letter and get the collection process started. |
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peacockrancher
Joined: 07 Sep 2008
peacockrancher's page
Posts: 51
62 Magic Points
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:21 pm
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| Pennsylvania is one of the strictist states when it comes to wage garnishment. |
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goodnatured
Joined: 03 Nov 2007
goodnatured's page
Posts: 4007
1224 Magic Points
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 8:04 pm
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| Yes peacockrancher, Pa is one of the strictist for wage garnishment, it also has one of the most active attorney generals offices when it comes to helping out the consumers too. We are pretty fortunate to have this and we do appreciate it. I have used the attorney generals office with many collection hassles and they have helped me get it all resolved. They hang in there until you get a satisfactory result. |
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fireyone
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
fireyone's page
Posts: 4500
8812 Magic Points
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Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:27 pm
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| PA does in fact have a very active atty genera. I personaly have had to call him and he was very prompt and called the collection agency as soon as he hung up the phone with me. With in an hour he called me back with information.I seen the earlier post on medical bills (miscarriage) I would believe that that debt would be past the SOL if it has been four years. Does anyone know about any medical bill exclusions? I have not heard of any but would like to know. |
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Ruthie
Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Ruthie's page
Posts: 58
1201 Magic Points
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Subject: Judgements and leins
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Mon Dec 28, 2009 4:15 am
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| I recently put my home up for sale because I can no longer live there. I live in Pa. My son is letting me stay with him and his wife until I can find a home in NC. I have a credit card that was paid off by ins. back in 2005 and they sold it to a collection agency. Now they are trying to get a lein on my home. Can they legally do this? I only have SS income, and my son has been paying this mortgage. Can they take my home??? Ruthie |
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John081983
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Subject: Collection
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Sun Jan 17, 2010 8:18 pm
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I would like to clear some things up for everyone. I see a lot of questions on here and i see a lot of wrong answers. I will walk you through the entire collection process including any legal proceedings.
First, when a collection agency is assigned a bill for collections(or they purchase the debt) they will send you a letter stating that you have 30 days to dispute the debt. If you dispute the debt within the time frame the collection agency has to prove the debt to you. How they prove it can vary on the type of debt.
After the 30 day period has passed they will attempt to contact you by letter or telephone. If you know you owe the money this is the time to setup an arrangment to pay it back. All collection agencies are willing to take a payment arrangment at this point. As long as you offer them something they will most likely leave you alone as long as you stick to the agreement. Now, to be clear they do not have to accept the payment arrangment if they dod not feel it is acceptable to pay back the debt. For example, if you owe $30,000 and only offer to pay $5 a month they will more than likely tell you no they need more. You can also offer them a settlement to clear up the debt. This is where you offer them less than what is actually owed. Most agencies will reduce your debt in order to get it cleared up.
If they can not get you to pay with letters and telephone calls they may decide to take lagal action against you. In PA the statute of limitations is 4 years(most people know this). One exception to this is for loans or credit granted....some lenders have you sign documents under what is called "Seal". Usually the word "Seal" would be near the signature line. If you signed a document under "Seal' there is no statute of limitation. If the word "Seal" is not there then the statute of limitations applies. The statute is 4 years from the date it was charged off or the last payment date.
The agency will then file a civil complaint against you. you will have another opportunity to dispute the bill with the courts. If you dipspute a hearing date will be set where both parties must attend. The agency would have to bring proof of the debt. It is up to the judge to decide if the proof that is provided is adequate to prove the debt. Every judge is different on this.
If you attend and lose or dont attend at all a judgment will be entered against you. You will 30 days to appeal the judgment(you will need an attorney for this unless you have some type of legal background). If you do not appeal the judgment the judgment is now valid.
They can then put a lein against any real property that you may own. Real property is pretty much a home(mobile homes or trailers do not count as real property). This lein will prevent you from selling the property or using the property as collateral to obtain credit.
if you still dont pay the judgment they can decide to execute on that judgment. Depending on the state there are several things they can do to get you to pay. All of these things have been mentioned so far but with some misleading information. First, we'll talk about personal property executions. The agency will file a writ of execution for personal property with the courts. A sheriff will visit your home and list items inside and outside of your house for public auction. This would include any vehicle registered to you. This step can be taken as many times as the agency desires or until the debt is paid in full. The amount of time they have to do this varies. The longest that i know of is 20 years. Another thing they can do is garnish your bank account. There are some exempt things to this. For example if it is a joint account and the judgment is only against one individual the money cant be touch. This is also true if the money is coming from social security. Your banks legal department will help with this if you have a joint account or receive social security. If they do succesfully garnish your account it will be frozen and any checks you have outstanding will bounce. The accounts can stay frozen for quite some time. One question i saw on here is how do they get your bank info. There are companies that offer this service to agencies. They do not provide your actual account # but just the name of your bank. This is all that is needed to freeze an account. How they know what account to freeze is they provide the bank with your ss# to verify they have the right person.
All of these things are 100% legal for them to do. My advice to everyone is to pay your bills, stay in contact with the collection agency. Most agencies are willing to work with you to take care of your debt. If you are nasty to a collection agency they will be nasty back. So, dont hang up on them, dont curse them out and dont threaten them.
Collection agencies are not as bad as some people think. They will work with you to clear up your debts. They will help you decide how much money you can afford to pay towards your past due debts. All you have to do is talk to them. If you talk with them and you really dont have the means to pay a lot of times they will just close the account because they are not going to waste time, money and resources to try to collect an uncollectable debt. Just talk to the agency and let them know your situation.
I also saw some thing on here about file suit against an agency. This is allowed but there are limits on how much money you get from them. You will not get rich file suit against the agency and even after you file suit and win the debt is still owed. Debts never go away no matter how old they are. The only thing the age of account does is limit what they can do to recover the debt.
Keep this in mind, if collection agencies didnt recover any of the lost money we would all face higher interest rates and inflated prices. The lenders and service providers need to recoup this money some how and unfortunately it falls onto the next consumer. It is good for all parties to pay your bills. It helps our economy and helps to keep prices down. There are a lot of debt counseling companies out there that help you take care of your debt free of charge. Once you get hooked up with one of these companies agencies are limited to what they can do. These companies can protect you because of the laws.
Bankruptcy may seem to be a good idea but with the new bankruptcy laws you have to go to a debt counselor before the courts will let you file bankruptcy. So, again just pay your debts the best you can and you can avoid all of this.
Oh and to answer Ruthies question they cannot take your home to pay off a credit card or hospital bill. They can put a lein against the property which will prevent you from selling it but if you say it was taken care of just pove it to them and they will back off. If an insurance company paid it for you, you can probably get the proof that it was paid from them.
Now, some of these things vary depending on the state. PA is a very consumer friendly state, other states not so much. everything that i mentioned in legal in PA which like i said is a very consumer friendly state. So, if you live in another state i would say pay your bills.
One more thing, wage garnishment can not be done in PA except for child support, alimony, and taxes. But, if you receive a check from another state that allows wage garnishment they can garnish that check. So, if you live in say Stroudsburg PA but work in Phillipsburg NJ, they can garnish your pay check.
So again, just pay your bills and you will avoid all of this. As long as you are paying something on a regular basis most agencies will just leave you alone and let you make your payments. |
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melyoplace
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Subject: bankruptcy vs garnishment
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Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:59 pm
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| John - thanks for the detailed info. I have a couple of questions along the lines of bankruptcy. First, I have incurred some debt due to my wife's disability from a debt that was originated in Georgia. Does it matter where the debt was incurred or whether what state you currently reside? Secondly, I have just recently received a judgement from a credit card company last week. My bankruptcy is being filed a we speak and should be complete this coming week. How fast will the garnishment procedure take to go into effect? |
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debranewell2008
Joined: 10 Oct 2009
debranewell2008's page
Posts: 605
89 Magic Points
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Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:17 pm
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| I also have a question if collection agencies are willing to work with people how come they call people up demanding the money in 30 days are they will take legal action. And there are certain things that happen in peoples lives that prevent them from paying their bills that can't be helped not because they just decided not to pay them. As far as not being rude to collection agencies and they won't be rude to you I'm not buying that at all. I have seen my grandpa try and explain to them why he couldn't pay but a certain amount not $5 but $25 and they went off on him. Thank god my dad was there he got on the phone and put them in there place. It was uncalled for at least he was willing to pay. I a wait your answer. |
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