Garnishing a bank account

On May 9, 7:48 am, "John A. Weeks III" <j...@johnweeks.com> wrote:
> In article <b42u3397eboiq4mgq9jjtdtjfmrifi5...@4ax.com>,
>
>  raji.pr...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Is this legal?  I was never notified that my
> > accounts would be garnished.

The notice of garnishment does not get served on the debtor, it gets served on the person who allegedly is holding property belonging to the debtor.   The debtor only finds out about it AFTER the property has been garnished.   Otherwise, a garnishment wouldn't serve much of a purpose; a debtor with "advance notice" that the bank was going to be served with a garnishment could simply clean out the account himself before the garnishment is served on the bank, leaving the creditor with an empty bag and having to chase down debtor's assets all over again.  So yes, it is fair.

> I don't think that you were garnished.  That normally happens on
> your paycheck.

Well, in MD the same word, garnishment, is used to refer both to a post-judgment attachment of an income stream (whether it is a salary or wage, or contract amounts due to the debtor from a third party) AND to attachment of any other property belonging to the debtor and held by a third party, such as bank accounts.   What distinguishes a garnishment from an attachment is that a writ of garnishment is directed to and served on a third party that allegedly holds property belonging to the debtor, whereas a writ of attachment is served directly on the debtor, such as by nailing the notice of lien and sheriff's sale on the door of debtor's house, or authorizing the sheriff to stick his hand in the till of debtor's business to get cash in satisfaction of the judgment debt.

> What happened is that the collection agency some
> how got your checking account number, and the sucked it dry.

Yep.   Which, if they did not engage in any illegal hanky-panky to obtain the account number, is perfectly legal.   In fact, one common tactic of creditors to collect a judgment debt is to serve writs of garnishment on ALL local banks that they suspect MAY be holding property belonging to the debtor.   You don't even need to know the person's account number, so long as you definitively identify the person whose property is being sought.   It is then the obligation of the person served with the writ of garnishment (the bank, the purported employer, whoever) to either cough up any property he is holding that belongs to the debtor, OR to file an answer alleging that he has no such property in his control, which allegation can be contested in an evidentiary hearing in front of a judge if the creditor doesn't believe the answer.

> While this is wrong, wrong, wrong, there is almost nothing that
> you can do.

IMO John is incorrect on both counts.   There is nothing wrong with what the creditor did, if it was indeed a post-judgment garnishment, but OP _may_ have legal rights against the alleged "debt consultants" he found on the Web who promised to "take care of it" for him.   He had sent them all his documents AND was making substantial monthly payments to that outfit, not directly to Citibank.   While it may not be the only possible conclusion, I strongly suspect OP was ripped off by a scam operator who kept his money, made empty promises, and then was nowhere to be found when the real creditor (Citibank) got fed up with waiting and garnished OP's bank account.

OP should indeed consult a lawyer specializing in consumer debt protection immediately -- live and in person, not over the web, and make sure he's a "real lawyer" -- and tell him the full story.   If there is a chance of going after the webscammers to get justice, he can probably find an attorney willing to do that on a contingency basis.   Throwing in punitive damages for fraud, etc., this case could be worth a LOT of money, much more than the #38k original debt.

>  You are not in a financial position where you can
> hire a good attorney to go after them.

He is, if the lawyer will take the case on contingency.   That's the beauty and vital necessity of contingent compensation, it lets even the penniless person who has been wronged obtain full justice with the help of a top-notch attorney.

> If if you do, you still
> owe the money, so they are likely going to get to keep it to
> pay the huge debt.

I agree there is probably nothing that can be done directly to get the money back from Citibank, IF it is shown that Citibank had received nothing from the previous payments OP had made to the webscammers and had made no installment-payment deal with them to settle the debt.

> This does happen a lot.  The industry of debt collection and
> debt reduction/credit repair is full of people who are less
> than honorable and who will do something like this to get
> anything out of you to repay the debt.

I think you're confusing the creditor and the scammer.   There is no dispute that OP owed $38k to Citibank; they got a judgment against him for that amount.  Citibank had no legal obligation whatsoever to agree to accept less; but _if_ they did so, the written agreement should of course have precluded other collection methods so long as OP kept up the payments.  We have no idea whether Citibank even knew of the "deal" OP thought he had worked out, thru the webscam outfit.

OTOH I fully agree with you that there are unscrupulous operators who take advantage of those in debt, and "buyer beware" is the order of the day.  If it turns out that OP got taken for a ride by the web-based company he contacted, he may or may not be able to get any money back from them, even if what they did was criminal as well as tortious, because he may not be able to find them.  That's one of the things that attracts sleazy businesses to use the web as their contact with their marks: if the heat is on, they can disappear without much of a trace.   But if there _is_ any chance of holding them to account, OP should be able to find a lawyer who can help him do that, for a contingent fee.

Good luck to OP,

--
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Mike Jacobs
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