ASSet Acceptance LLC Served me with bogus papers... I think? Phoenix Arizona

"From what I was told it's illegal to garnish wages for a credit card debt."

Any judgement can be garnished. It doesn't matter what the judgement was for. I'm just surprised a credit card company actually sued. The wife must have had a very high balance.

Hi,

sorry to hear you are a victim of Asset Acceptance

Asset Acceptance plays games with people in attempts to take their money.

If the dollar amount in question is a large amount, say over $500 it may be in your favor to have a lawyer or attorney look at the papers Asset Acceptance sent you.

You should also be able to go in person to your local Clerk of Courts and ask them if their is any pending judgements against you listed and maybe ask them if the papers you have are legal or not.

Since your wife made a payment a couple years ago then the courts may consider the account valid and able to be collected on if it would get into a court matter. Making a payment on a old debt makes it become active again. Most states have statue of limitations on debts. There is a website somewhere that lists this info but I don't remember the web address. You can do a search for statue of limitations fo debts and you should find a site or sites to give you some helpful info.

Also,

Do not do any business at all with Asset Acceptance by phone.

If they call you state that you will not do anything by phone. Do not let them threaten you on the phone. Their are Federal Consumer Laws protecting us consumers.

You have rights as a consumer to ask for no futher phone contact to your home or work phone number and that everything needs to be done by mail.

Do everything on paper and send it by Certified Mail with Return Receipt Requested thru the post office and keep copies of everything sent.

Asset Acceptance has to provide you with a copie of the original contract with the credit company in question. You have the right to ask Asset Acceptance to send you that information. If they cannot prove the debt or send you that info on when you opened the account, etc. then Asset Acceptance does not have a case and what they are attempting to do is illegal.

As far as the papers Asset Acceptance sent you I cannot answer or say if they are legal but the best thing to do is ask a attorney or lawyer if they can take a quick look at the papers and determine if the papers are legal or just junk mail.

If Asset Acceptance is going to do anything to you like Garnish your wages or something like that they they have to go thru the Courts and they have to try and place a Judgement thru the Court System in your city first before Asset Acceptance can legally take any money from you.

If you have not gotten any papers from your local Clerk of Courts then probably the mail from Asset Asseptance is just junk mail trying to threaten you into paying them money.

Asset Acceptance buys old debts from Companies for Pennies on the dollar and tries to collect the full amount plus Interest that is so high that there is no way it can possibly be that much.

Do not give Asset Acceptance one single penny.

You may even be better off just contacting the original company you had the account thru and ask if you can make payment arrangements and pay it off thru them that way. And ask them you want the account turned back off to them and have Asset Acceptance stop sending you letters.

And if they won't help you out then if you can afford it ask a attorney or lawyer what they recommend to get Asset Acceptance off your back.

Hope some of this info can be of help to you.

I know exactly what you are going thru, and yes, they are getting ready to garnish your wife's wages. They did the exact thing to me in 2005. After hitting two of my paychecks, something happened and they quickly stopped the garnishment and returned my money. From what I was told it's illegal to garnish wages for a credit card debt. I have never verified that claim.

My Target card was charged off and closed around 2001 due to being laid off months earlier. They pressured and hounded me, threatened me and finally sent me to court in late 2004. I too felt it was all bogus but found out the docket was real. I was dumbfounded that I'm going to court because I couldnt pay a bill. Anyhow, I dont remember all the details but they suggested a judgement. I guess I can chalk it up to being naive, but I thought this meant that it will be on my credit for extra years or something and I wont have to deal with them any longer. I was so wrong. The Writ of Garnishment letters came after the holidays, however I was not told anything from my employer, it just started happening. I'm working retail bringing barely $500 a paycheck with no disposable income, and they were taking almost half of that! I was totally crushed and didn't know what to do. Them giving the money back was something they did on their own. Perhaps they realized they f*cked up. They didnt call or send letters for a few months after that, probably fearing I was gonna come after them. I didnt have the time or resources to do so at the time, but I am thinking about it now.

So fast forward to today, and here I hold a letter from Asset Acceptance on this same old debt. I just pulled all my credit files two weeks ago, and they are no longer on any of them. Looking at an old report from last year shows that it should have (and did) roll of August of 2007. Why are they still contacting me? I've had it with them and I'm waiting to hear back from a lawyer to see what rights I might have.

Get all the resources you possibly can when you do goto court. Do not agree to anything with these vultures!!! they cannot reset the SOL on this UNLESS a payment was sent in. Try to search your records to see what she paid $10 on. At the very least try to obtain free legal counsel on the situation.

Good luck!

Rather than being skeptical of the paperwork you received, check with the clerk of the county/circuit court that is shown on the paperwork and see if there is a case against your wife. Unfortunately, since she made a payment around 2 years ago, she reset the time clock on the statute of limitations (they vary by state).

If the Writ of Garnishment is dated November, I'm surprised her employer hasn't mentioned receiving any paperwork. Again, you can find out from the Clerk of the Court if the Writ of Garnishment was ever granted by a judge. They are also only entitled to a certain percentage of disposable income (I'm not sure of the exact percent), but I don't think it's half.

I've never really been through your situation so I'm not sure where you go from here. I don't think you can get the judgment vacated since you can't show you weren't served and you can't show the statute of limitations has expired. Maybe someone else can give you some ideas.