KENOSIAN & MIELE, LLP ATTORNEYS AT LAW Garnished Wages and Bank Levy without serving papers to me until after the fact. Los Angeles California

 I think its Cute when people who work for these type of companies defend everything, knowing if the shoe was on the other foot, then you'd be arguing the same point. First of all yes I had to accept it, because I was already being garnished for child support for my daughter at about 23%. So the percentage left over, the other 2% I guess came out to the $50, which was all they could garnish. You can't have 2 creditors each taking 25%. So 4 years Yes I did get served those papers. Now on the other during that 4 year period, i had no itemization, no breakdown of how much money was going where. The judgement was for $3900. As far as budget reduction i have been doing that, but as you know the cost of living goes up at a higher pace, then our pay at work. So financially I'm not that bad off, I'm just taking care of my family trying to keep up with rent being raised and other things. Secondly I'm not a bad person, I try hard to stay on top of my bills, negotiate if I'm having a hard time. When I changed jobs 6 months ago I had a lot of things going on. My Mother got Liver Cancer, and my grandmother passed away, SO were you guys on my mind at the time to contact, NO! The child support office even sent me a letter and Email, and phone call to update my information of my new job. So my only complaint, is you had my information and I received no type of communication, of any sort, whether it was garnishment, updated information, where I would have been more willing. Like I said I had more serious matters with my mother on mind during that time. But you're right the bank account is dead, I can't deposit into any bank account, I still have to pay Rent, because I'm not causing me and my family to go homeless, by you guys taking all my money. But you guys don't care about that, so I will just leave it at that.

So in 2013 they started garnishing your paycheck and over the last 4 years you just accepted that without even so much as a letter or phone call to/from them to see what is going on? If that is the case how did you get them to accept $50/month? Then taking that you actually do have information...why would you think that their information changed in this time?

As I said being garnished is one thing, you have all my information at your disposal, my credit reports my job, my address
- First I am not "them", I am just a regular consumer. They actually don't have your job, because you quit that job and failed to update them. As for everything else, if you haven't contacted them how do you know what they do and don't have?

If I were trying to dodge the situation, I would NOT have a bank account at all.
- Then once again why are you upset that they actually attached your bank account? You can't on one hand say you accept the debt and are not trying to avoid them, but then on the other hand don't even attempt to contact them and complain when they do exercise their legal rights.

in which I had no Information on. I never got served any papers, summons, judgements, or notice, phone call NOTHING!
- Are you talking about this attachment? If so they don't need to serve you any additional papers or any sort of summons..the original order stands. Now, if you are talking about the original garnishment I go back to may very first comment in this update...you are really going to tell us in 4 years you just accepted this without doing a thing?

Now, don't get me wrong I do feel for you, but I think you needed to be a bit more proactive and it would have avoided this situation. I also will say that you are right and should try to get an accounting of the garnishment. As while you didn't say how much the judgement was for, I wonder how much good the $50/month is actually doing to pay it off. That $50 may only be covering the Interest that is still being assessed. If you are that bad off financially you may need to start to consider other options. This could include other jobs, doing a drastic budget reduction, or even declaring bankruptcy.

Oh and this should be "common sense" but with your other comments I wonder. Just realize that if you still owe money you must consider that bank account "dead". As any money you put into it will be attached and taken.  You also must consider any account at that bank also "dead" as the order would most likely apply to any account at that bank. If there is any possibility that they know other bank accounts you have you may need to think of what you want to do about those account. This also includes accounts that you may have a joint account with. You also are now at the stage where you say if you weren't trying to avoid them are you going to open up another account? If not then perhaps you actually are trying to avoid them.

 I will accept the fact I knew about my debt, I'm not denying any of that. But people have families and mouths to feed and when you go in and wipe out their whole bank account, that's a tough pill to swallow. As I said being garnished is one thing, you have all my information at your disposal, my credit reports my job, my address, I don't have any of your information, documentation. In fact I don't even have a breakdown of no sorts, of where the money is being disposed too. If you are going to go into my personal matters, then I should have at least a spreadsheet or itemization of where and how the money is being distributed to creditor, sheriff's and what not. If I were trying to dodge the situation, I would NOT have a bank account at all. For you to say I didn't contact you, makes it hard when you're a 3rd party debt collector and not the actual creditor, in which I had no Information on. I never got served any papers, summons, judgements, or notice, phone call NOTHING!

I will start off by saying that there are many cases where collection agencies and attornies do not follow proper procedure and as your title state will do things that make it quite a surprise to people who all of the sudden have their wages garnished.  However, here that is NOT the case.

You admit you had an active garnishment and by your own words did not contact them to give you your new information figuring that they would just "find you or contact you". Well they did the former...they found you.

Contrary to your title this has nothing to do with you being properly served. As you knew you had an order in place and have actually been garnsihed since 2013.  If you wanted to go down that route the time to do that was when they originally started the garnishment.  So we must figure that this is a valid garnishment.

So this situation wasn't caused by them, it was caused by you not informing them of your new information.  This is 100% on you as if you had contacted them they would probably have set up the garnishment with the new job.  Instead they just took the money owed from your bank account..which is very legal.

No company is going to tell you in advance that they are going to attach your bank account, as the first thing you would have done is emptied the account. Which defeats the purpose.

As for the amount garnished...in this case they now have the power. As in CA(which you appear to be in) they can take up to 25% of your GROSS paycheck.  So if they were willing to accept $50 consider yourself very lucky, even now if they are willing to accept $100 consider yourself very lucky as if you  are earning anything more than $400/month you are getting them to accept BELOW the maximum they COULD take.