Garnishments and CA

[guiness56]

Can a CA garnish your wages? It is a federal debt.

Message Edited by guiness56 on 01-28-2008 04:42 PM

[ChemGuy]

Only if they have judgement.  If you set up a payment plan with them then they may submit a consent judgement to the court to get a judgement, which then allows them to garnish. 

[guiness56]

I do not have a payment plan with them.  I just found out about it.  Apparently they have had this account since Nov 07.  I talked with the OC yesterday to find out the status. They have been telling me not to make payments on it due to the fact they were going to garnish my wages.  Once the garnishment process has started they can't stop it.  When the garnishment never happened I called them.  For some reason, the different departments do not talk to one another. I have my current address with the billing department but this one has an address 15 years old. Anyway they sent it to OSI.  Do you know if they can offset my income tax?  At least it would be paid.

[Anonymous]

Tax intercept is one of the first buttons they push-

Federal stuff just does not "jump up" - there is more to this story.

[guiness56]

What are you implying?  

[Anonymous]

My apologies- I should have chosen my words better-

In my experience and others I know that have dealt with debt to the government - They bury you with paper covering all possible angles for months or years before escalating to garishment /tax intercept.

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guiness56 wrote:

What are you implying?  

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[guiness56]

No problem.  What really irritates me is that I tried to take care of it and was told not to bother.  Now my refund is being offset.  In a sense it is a good thing as I no longer owe them.  Well, I don't think I will.  Who knows.  Years ago I defaulted on a student loan for $4000.00.  They offset my income tax for 13 years for well over $25,000.00.  The Department of Education told me for years they were not receiving money on my account.  They were the ones offsettng my refund.

[LittleCat]

YES-they can garnish, they did to me....and NO they do NOT have to have a judgement if it is for a defaulted student loan!!!

Alot of people think that unless they go to court, they can't garnish, but the fed student loan program is exempt. After a certain point they can and will garnish...even if they were sending all notices etc. to an address that is wrong, like they did me.

If you let the garnishment happen, here is what you can expect:

15% garnishment per pay check

-garnishment will continue until it is paid or you have entered into a payment plan and have made 3 monthes payments on time. And no, you can't pay 3 monthes in one lump sum, it has to be 1 time per month within X amount of days from the due date. So regardless of payment plan, you will be garnished for 3 monthes.

-Payment plan is usually $150.00 on top of the garnishment!!

-They are very slow at removing the garnishment, don't expect it to come off right at the 3 month mark-you will make many, many calls to ensure they lift it. I ended up getting the National Student Loan Program rep conference called in to get it lifted. THEY WILL NOT LIFT IT UNLESS THEY ARE FORCED.

It was a nightmare-you absolutely do not want to go there....thankfully, I had the finances to deal with it, many people do not.

If I were you, I would do whatever you can to avoid this.

[guiness56]

It is NOT for a student loan.  I was only making reference to something that happened in the long ago past.  It is a valid debt I did try to take care of.  Garnishment won't happen.  As I stated,  they are offsetting my federal income tax.