Garnished wages...we didn't even know we had debt!

Hi!
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Can your husband really prove that he has paid off/settled the account? Does he have any document to prove that? If yes, then your husband can show it to the court while appealing for vacating the judgment. It may be the case that the court papers were sent to the previous address by mistake. This is why your husband didn't receive anything.

thanks for your reply...honestly, he probably did not settle this. he was dealing with several bad credit circumstances back then and settled/paid a lot...he thought he took care of everything, and because he never heard otherwise, just assumed he was fine...i guess there were 2 credit cards, and he had only covered one of them. this being the other, i'm sure we probably do owe, and I'm not the type of person to try to screw them out of the money my husband owed them....i just am so confused as to how they can claim to not find him for 5 years and with NO warning to us, start garnishing wages. we would have been making payments this whole time had we known...but we cannot afford $700 a month! i'm just really scared, and i know i cannot prove we didn't get their forms/notices....but how hard is it for them to find us if we had a change of address with the post office? or look up our tax info and find us at his new job? are they really that shady that they will let us sit for 5 yrs so they can collect $3000.00 in interest? i'm just sick about this whole ordeal.

Was he never served? If not then you need to motion the court to vacate the judgment due to improper service.

They will likely refile in your jurisdiction BUT, this will buy you time and afford you the opportunity to validate the debt before they can refile. If they can't validate, they can't sue you. If they validate the debt, then you can negotiate a settlement with them.

thanks...i'm pretty sure it is our word vs theirs :(. you see, they send all the information to our old apartment address and it never got sent back to them (thank you tenant-who-moved-in-after-us for throwing it away instead of 'return to sender'). because they never got the mail returned as undeliverable, they assumed we got it and just ignored it. i went though a similar thing with the IRS..they had sent us a form in 2008 saying we needed to claim some income on our taxes (from a settlement my husband had done in 2006 with other creditors) and we NEVER GOT IT because we had moved into our house by then...so just this past year, got huge penalties from the IRS for not filing properly in 2008!! FRUSTRATING that such a tedious little thing like a wrong address can cost you THOUSANDS of dollars :(. in this case we are dealing with now, we can settle for $5900 (orig debt was $5200) so we will scrap, borrow, beg to do this as soon as possible and stop the wage garnishments. thanks everyone...i really appreciate your advice. just gunna stay strong in my faith...god is good! he has never not provided for us, and i know he's got a way out of this one too :)

Well, not really.

If you can prove when you moved (utility bills? lease? etc.), you can prove that you were not served. And, I may be wrong about this, but I don't think you can just get a summons in the mail. It has to be served to you in person.

If they can prove they did not live at the address anything was mailed to and/or a summons sent to at that time, then I would not pay them a damn thing and petition the court to overturn the judgement as they were NOT served properly. They KNEW you were not served properly and so they slid in a judgement. And thats HOW these companies keep getting away with this crap. Because everyone folds and gives in to them. FIGHT IT

Especially if this was a debt that was out of statute when they got the judgement. Paying on a debt that was SOL now will just put it back on your credit for 7-10 years again, and cost you even more in credit.

those are all great points....but the fact remains that he does owe $5200ish for his credit card. so even if we prove we didn't get notified, there is still the debt he owes..we need to pay that, regardless. i'll look into it, but if i can settle for $5900, that's not the end of the world (assuming i can borrow the cash, which i think i can...gotta love nana and papa). and, although i am not mad at my husband...i don't resent him for his poor choices years ago (we all make mistakes) he should have been more on top of this stuff and realized this was not resolved....so if we end up paying 5900 instead of 5200 and can put it all behind us, fine. thanks again..

i did type up a response that i'll read to them on the phone tomorrow (wanted to be prepared). i took some of the language from this thread, combined with some other research and am letting them know i can come up with $5100 cash by next week to settle, but if that is not good enough, i'll be 'motioning the court to vacate the judgment due to improper service.' i will also ask for a signed paper showing my husband was in fact served, with a time and date stamp for reference. fingers crossed.

lady you do not negotiate with this slime until you get this judgement vacated.your husband's credit is trashed because of this,and even paying it won't help as judgements even paid stay on your CR for 10 yrs.vacate the judgement then research this debt.if it is "time barred"then you can turn around and sue this place for illegaly suing on a time barred debt,but don't just negotiate as again your husband's credit is trashed and unless you don't care or have no plans that involve financing then so be it,but just know that they got a judgement illegaly and i would be leery of any supposed offer anyway.

just talked to them...in WI on the 3rd attempt, they can hand the papers (serve them) to anyone over age 14. on sept 25th, 2006 they handed the papers to his teenage, high school drop out nephew (who is now in jail for drug using/dealing). my husband was half staying at that house to help his dad (who was dying of lung cancer) raise his sister's two teenage boys. this sucks. legally, we can't do anything. we will settle for $5600.

it is advisable to actually see proof of service. I am assuming that they obtained a default judgement. If so they would have needed to file proff of service. Before paying you should make sure that they did indeed reduce their claim to judgement. The court that issued that judgement will be able to provide you with a copy. Have you been formally notified by the court that wages will be garnished? or is the collector simply threatening it?

they have already garnished his wages. so, it's not a threat. it's already started. and if we don't settle by next paycheck, they will garnish again and since it is 'involuntary money', it will not count towards the settlement. i hate this, i truly do, but the fact is my husband had a credit card of $5200ish and it was not paid. i am not mad at him, it was a mistake, he has learned how to be more on top of his finances and budgets now. i feel we must take some responsibility here..yes, i'm frustrated and upset it took 5 years to find out about this. yes, i'm dumbfounded that they gave these papers to his 17 yr old delinquent nephew and who knows what happened to them. but i can't change the past...i'm dealing with the present, and i see no point in fighting this. the debt is real. debt follows you a long time (as my husband has learned). i just want to get this over with, preferably before they take another dime from his pay checks! i feel like people think i'm a wimp for paying and not fighting...i'm not happy about it. but i'm an exhausted stay at home mom, pregnant, emotional, and just want this over. :(

i sincerely appreciate all the feedback...had we found out about all this earlier (before garnishment had already begun) perhaps I'd have a little more fight in me.

i understand as rules for service differ from state to state.i would try to get them to settle,but get anything in writing so you can get the garnishment stopped.