INSIDER INFO ON JUDGMENT COLLECTORS
Having a judgment filed against you is bad news.
A creditor with a judgment against you may hire a judgment collection company to try to get you to pay them.
Judgment collection companies use unpleasant strategies like these to get you to pay:
Talk to the people you know. Judgment collectors will try to contact people who know you to learn more about you, and where you may have money. They also hope they can embarrass you by telling others about your judgment to make it more likely that you’ll pay them off.
Freeze your bank account. Once a judgment has been filed against you, a creditor can freeze your bank account and take any money you have over $1,500. Have more than one bank account? They are all at risk.
Garnish your wages. A creditor with a judgment against you can take 10% of your gross income. That’s like a forced pay cut, and without bankruptcy it won’t go away until the judgment is paid off.
Go through your trash. Do you shred your documents before they go out in the trash? Some judgment collection companies will go through your trash looking for information about money or assets you have that they can seize on behalf of creditors.
Judgment collectors will be very thorough in their investigations. They want to find out about anything and everything valuable that you may have, including business ownership, contracts, real estate, and automobiles. Their goal is to help your creditor get your money.
Filing bankruptcy is often the quickest and least expensive option to get rid of a judgment.
Filing bankruptcy will –
Prevent creditors from contacting you. Once an attorney is representing you in a bankruptcy case, all further communication with you must go through the attorney. Imagine the relief from endless phone calls demanding money you don’t have!
Allow you to use your bank account. Frozen bank accounts can be tricky. It’s better to withdraw your money before the account is frozen. However, a frozen account will be accessible much more quickly with a bankruptcy than without one.
End wage garnishment. You earned that money, and you should keep it. Bankruptcy will stop the garnishment of your wages.
Protect your privacy. Once your debts are cleared, no one will have reason to go through your trash looking for information about you.
You can be free from creditor harassment, wage garnishment, and privacy infringement. Call our office today!