Notice of Defense

Send a letter to Sonic and one to your employer stating that you want to stop the wage assignment. My sister did that and they stopped it immediately.

CERTIFIED MAIL, RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
March 31, 2006
Youre Name _________________
Your Address
Your City, Your State your zip
Creditors Name
Creditors Address

Re: Account No. your account number with this creditor
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hereby revoke your right to use the wage assignment I signed on Date you signed for loan. You no longer have my permission to use this wage assignment.
Sincerely,


Your Name _________________
cc: Name Of You Employer

the creditor must give you 20 days to dispute it. this type of collection is sneaky, and they have to honor a revocation. Be prepared though, you should make some arrangements with sonic right away, because they might try to get a judgement for garnishment after being denied the wage assignment.

Are you in Texas? If so, in Texas your wages cannot be garnished, except for government owed debts or child support etc. They probably can come after your bank account though, so I'd plan on shifting some money around. Also in Texas, you have a $30,000 personal exemption on judgments ($60,000 family).

No, I don't think they can go after your bank account in Texas, not without going to court first.

Please make sure you're talking about garnishment as opposed to a wage assignment. A garnishment is a judicial process, often initiated as a separate legal proceeding in order to execute a prior judgment. A wage assignment is a contract, which in many if not most cases can be revoked (if it's a consumer loan, it may be revocable under your state law, even if the contract says it's irrevocable).

If it was a garnishment, the person doing the garnishment was required by federal law to ensure that you were served with a form that allows you to claim exemptions. I've never heard of a "notice of defense" and frankly it doesn't make any sense to me, though there may be some funky statute in whatever state you live it that uses that phrase and clothes it with meaning. But garnishments are primarily (but not exclusively) regulated by federal law.

Legal stuff tends to be fairly precise in its use of terms (that often confuse people because they sound like ordinary English words, even though they're being used in their original Norman French meaning). But unless you can explain exactly what's going on and why, anything anyone can tell you on this website will be a shot in the dark.

I'm in Nevada, Where I'm not sure anything is illeagal.

No it's a Wage Assignment Document that was sent to my employer. The notice I got from my payroll department used the word garnishment.

Can you give me the full name of the company that's taking your money and tell me what their basis for taking it was (i.e., payday loan, check cashing service, what?)?

Sonic Payday, it was a payday loan. I've tried to work with them, but they won't accept partial payments.

Payday loan companies and check cashers are required to be licensed in Nevada; there is no company name starting with "sonic" licensed by the Nevada Division of Financial Institutions in either of those categories.

The notice they sent my employer says Coastline Credit ltd. Maybe Sonic Payday is a dba.

The upside is that if I can get this wage assignment stopped before payday. I have the address to send payments.(sonic has previously refused to give me an address).

Payday loan is not a company name; it's a service mark registered in Nevada, and owned by a company named, CASH ONCALL OF AMERICA, INC., 3860 W. SAHARA BLVD., LAS VEGAS, NV 89102; There is no corporate entity registered in Nevada with a name beginning with "Sonic Payday". Cash Oncall is a legitimately registered corporation. If the company name on your wage assignment doesn't have the name of a real "person" (including corporate "persons"), then it is invalid. Void, nihil, nada. Also note that a service mark is just that, not a name.

There is no entity licensed to do payday loans in NV with a name starting with "Coastline".

There are two using the names "Payday Loan" and "Payday Loans"; the first is located at the same address for Cash Oncall of America; the second looks like a misspelling of a branch of the first.

Coastline is not authorized to use the names, "Payday Loan" or "Sonic" in NV. Of the corporate entities having names starting with Sonic, I can't find any that have any common address or anything to do with any payday loan company.

So if I'm following you, forgive me if I'm off. If they aren't licenced to do business in Nevada, then what they are doing is illegal?

I think you got free money. Under NV law, you have a civil action against the "sonic" scam people for operating an unlicensed payday loan co., which I looked up earlier today - as I recall, you get a minimum of $1000 plus attorneys' fees if you sue them. Give your employer written notice of the fact that the company that's trying to take your money either doesn't exist at all, or if it exists, is operating illegally; that you intend to take civil action against them; that any purported wage assignment executed by you is revoked; and that they are not to honor anything other than a notarized document having your original signature on it. Meanwhile, find a consumer protection lawyer.

Thank you so much!! I don't know what I would have done without this forum. I'm telling everybody I know about payday loans and how dangerous they are. If only I'd found this forum before I got into this mess.

Code of Nv specifically states that you can sue them for the free thousand bucks just for having "knowingly" requiring a wage assignment in connection with a payday loan, IN ADDITION TO any actual damages you've suffered, costs, attorneys' fees, and interest on the judgment. See NRS 604A.930(2(f)). 'Cause that's illegal under NRS 604A.440(4(c)). I'd like to see them say, "Oh, but we didn't KNOW we were doing a wage assignment!" Like that's going to go over really big. For half a day's work (going to court) you could end up not only not paying them back, but collecting against them.
Oh, and I'd expect the legal fees they have to pay to run in the range of six to eight thousand bucks. Make sure you get a deal with the lawyer so that you're not actually out of pocket on that.

addresses for further study, without the intervening spaces, of course:

Nevada Revised Statutes are available at:

h t t p : / / leg . state . nv . us

Nevada Div. of Financial Institutions:

h t t p : / / fid . state . nv . us

Nevada Corporate information: note the "S":

h t t p S : / / esos . state . nv . us / SOSServices / AnonymousAccess / CorpSearch / CorpSearch . aspx

There is a long thread about sonic/coastline. Based on the thread, they are probably trying to enforce a wage assignment

thank you so much. My payroll department is giving me a little slack. Asking if I'm going to make payment arrangements. They seem to think it's their business.

tell your payroll department that you are in the process of litigating Sonic.