Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Re: Old Credit Debt Judgement has Granted Garnishment of Wages

Alas, you may have but a third option to bankruptcy and negotiation, it is called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If the judgment is in favor of a third party (a collection company other and not the credit card companies), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has usually been violated! You can sue them. You should talk to an attorney who knows about the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to see if you have a case.

Re: Old Credit Debt Judgement has Granted Garnishment of Wages

Talk to your creditors, you'd be surprised at their willingness to accept as little as a third of the total to stop pestering you. It will, however, not aid your credit report, but then neither will pay the account in full. Send a letter to the credit bureau and tell them your side of the story. That must accompany any report they issue on you.

Re: Old Credit Debt Judgement has Granted Garnishment of Wages

Unfortunately, the credit card companies don't just go after college students. I must receive 5 offers of credit cards each week.

There is nothing you can do, legally, short of filing bankruptcy to get out from under the debt. Don't file bankruptcy!

Call the creditor and explain what happened, and that you are now gainfully employed, and want to make amends by setting up a payment program. How much do you owe, totally? If you have other creditors, call them too, and try to work things out. Set up a program, and stick to it. You may just have to give up on some of your other spending habits until this is cleared up.

Good Luck.

Re: Old Credit Debt Judgement has Granted Garnishment of Wages

Thanks for your posting, and I appreciate the details.

In my opinion, you have two basic options -- you can continue to negotiate, or you can file a bankruptcy and wipe out these debts.

If you have unmanageable debt and file a Chapter Seven straight bankruptcy, you will not be required to repay your debts. This affords

you a clean slate with which to approach future obligations.

The way that helps you here is that you might want to MENTION that you are consulting with attorneys to file bankrutpcy. They may be willing to negotiate further on your cas.e

In a Chapter 13, you may make payments to all your creditors each month.

After determining income, an amount should be set aside to provide for

normal living expenses. The amount of income remaining after providing

for living expenses is the maximum amount available for debt payments.

If you cannot repay your debts in full over three to five years, you may

be eligible for a partial repayment plan, or a "best efforts" plan.

In any event, Chapter Thirteen almost always reduces your payments to an amount you can afford, so that can be a "last case scenario" for you if you can't get anywhere by negotiating..