Where Form 843 Garnishment 2011-2024

Hello and welcome to our video. My name is John Watts. I'm a consumer protection lawyer. A big part of my day is spent suing debt collectors and defending consumers who have been sued by debt collectors. Here's a question that comes up: maybe you get a phone call from a debt collector, you get a letter from a debt collector, or you see them on your credit report, or you actually get sued by them. The question is, can I have my wages garnished by this debt collector before they have a judgment against me? Well, there are a couple of questions that we always ask. Number one, is there a judgment against you? If that debt collector has a judgment against you, then yeah, it's almost a certainty they can garnish your wages, unless your wages are low enough that you are exempt from wage garnishment. But let's say they have no judgment against you. Then the second question is, is this some type of federal debt, like a federal student loan? Because sometimes those guys can go through what's called an administrative process, where they follow all these steps and then they're allowed to administratively garnish your wages. But if it's not that, if we're just dealing with Midland Funding, Portfolio Recovery, Calvary, LVNV, these guys are collecting credit card, medical debt, car loan debt, maybe even old mortgage debt, and they threaten or suggest to you that they can garnish your wages and they do not have a judgment against you, that's a problem. We want to know exactly what are they saying. Now, sometimes they'll try it and be very vague. Like, ultimately, things could possibly lead to where we have the legal right to garnish. Okay, maybe that's okay depending on the context. But if they're just...