Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Wisconsin

I would never recommend making any payments or giving out any personal information these days to anyone who contacts you by phone or email unless you initiated the call and know for certain who you are speaking with. Even then, you should get the name, business address and phone number of any operator who is arranging payments or receiving your personal information. 99% of all "cold calls" calls of this nature are scams, designed only to steal your identity or money. If you suspect that they may be legitimate collectors, I would agree with your instinct that all business should be conducted by via mail with money orders; never give out private information about your bank accounts since it is only likely to result in a garnishment of that account by the collector. If you acknowledge the debt, you can resolve all doubt about the legitimacy of the alleged collector by simply paying the debt directly to the original creditor and retaining proof of payment. Answering your specific question about whether you can be garnisheed for only $350, the answer is definitely "yes" since there is no minimum limitation on a garnishment. Technically, a creditor could garnishee you for one cent, but they would have to pay an $88 court filing fee, together with process server fees of nearly that much again, in order to commence the garnishment case and may therefore decide that it is not worth it. However, any time you are dealing with bill collectors, you owe it to yourself to at schedule a free initial consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer, who can often get rid of all of your secured debt for not much more than $1,000 in legal fees and costs. Even if your debts are too low to merit a bankruptcy filing, an experienced bankruptcy lawyer can also sometimes protect you by properly asserting your WI or federal exemptions outside of bankruptcy, particularly if your income is low or limited to disability. You also ask if it is legal to charge you more if the collector is forced to start suit and the answer is definitely �yes,� subject to some major limitations on how much can be added on for debts which are purely consumer related rather than business debt if the additional charges were not authorized by your cardholder agreement or other contract with the creditor. My comments here are not legal advice, nor do they create an attorney client relationship between us. However, you always more than welcome to contact my office to discuss retaining me or to set up a free initial consultation at my office in Racine. I also travel outside of Racine for initial consultations, although that may not always be free.