Garnishment of bank account

On May 11, 8:37 am, "John A. Weeks III" <j...@johnweeks.com> wrote:

> The far more common scenario that I see happening is that a debtor
> will offer to make a $50 payment.  So, they give their checking
> account information to the collection agent, and the collection
> agent grabs every last cent in the account.  That is what I had
> suspected happened here, and even if that were somehow legal, it
> is dishonorable and immoral to take more than was offered.

If that is what happened, then John is right.   The creditor (or his agent, the collection company) has no right to access OP's account, much less to withdraw money from it. except at times and in amounts that OP has specifically authorized them to do so, e.g. by an electronic checking agreement for periodic automatic bill payments.  Taking any more than that, or taking it sooner than permitted, could be a crime    However, unlike John I don't think this is a very common occurrence, being as it is such an easily traceable form of bank fraud that any perp is almost certain to get caught.

It is possible OP signed off on such permission, to let one bank have complete unfettered access to make withdrawals from his account at a different bank, but I doubt it.  However, I also doubt a megafirm like Citibank would risk its reputation and a possible punitive damages award running into the gazillions, if they knowingly took money directly from OP's account at another bank without OP's permission and/or a court order.  Attempting to come up with a scenario that would eliminate those two unlikely possibilities is why I originally opted for a third possibility, and concluded that OP most likely was the victim of a legally proper account-garnishment proceeding after Citibank had obtained a default judgment against him on the underlying debt.   OP's post was so full of factual holes that all the above is just a guess, which is why I tried to preface my conclusions in an "if X, then Y" form.

A fourth possibility just occurs to me, which is that OP's deposit account may have also been with Citibank, the same outfit he ran up the credit card debt with, and there may be something in the papers he signed to open the account with Citibank (either the deposit account, the credit account, or both) that allowed Citibank to do this.   If so, OP still would have no claim against Citibank unless they breached a subsequent settlement agreement in which they agtreed to accept his periodic payments thru the debt reduction counselors OP found on the Web and NOT to pursue any other collection methods.   And of course, all the above leaves wide open the possibility OP may have a valid claim against the debt counseling firm, depending on all the pertinent facts.

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