I have a question about wage garnishment over a debt that had already been paid off.

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The initial debt was from 2011 where law firm Bridgers, Peters & Kleber sent me a summons in which I responded and worked out a payment plan. As of 24hrs ago I was notified my wages would be garnished over this debt. The law firm has since changed to McCullough Payne & Haan, LLC. I printed my credit report from all three bureau's and noticed there is nothing about this debt on any of them. I have contacted the law firm and left voicemails but no one will contact me back about this. My wages are set to be garnished next week. What are my rights? How do I fight this? Why would this debt not show up on my credit report?

3 Attorney Answers

Your credit report has little to nothing to do with the issue. Did you, or did you not, make all settlement payments as due or pay off the judgment. You should know that without having to look at your credit report (which, again, is irrelevant).
You need to gather everything you have in writing about the payment plan for review by an experienced consumer protection attorney. If you have documents showing that the payment plan was completed, then counsel can get MPH's attention and this can probably be corrected easily.
Most likely, either (1) You did not make all payments as agreed; or (2) Somehow the Bridgers firm may have made a mistake in their records showing that all payments were made. If it was the latter, hopefully you can prove you made the payments from canceled checks or other records; contact the magistrate court where the garnishment was filed and ask for (or get online) a "traverse" form, and follow the instructions they give you to go to court and stop the garnishment. If it was the former, and you still owe some of the debt, call or write the new law firm and see if they will set up another payment plan; however, if you failed to keep a former payment plan up, they will have very little incentive for doing so. And, if you have a lot of debt, which you cannot handle, you might want to consider bankruptcy, which will completely erase the garnishment along with most other debt.

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