What Legal Action Will Debt Collection Take Against Your Credit Card Debt?

Being in debt is extremely stressful, especially if you have so much credit card debt and you know for sure you are not able to pay off debt right away. With situation like that, you just can’t get away with daily endless debt collection calls, harassment and threats. So, what kind of legal action can you expect from debt collection against your debt?

First of all, you will receive a summons in the mail, when a debt collection agency files lawsuit against you.  Inside the summons, you will find who the plaintiff is, why you are being sued, the summons filed date, how much the demand amount is and what date you must appear in court.

Never ignore the summons. The most important action you must take when you get a summons is to answer the complaint before the due date.  If you are not sure what to do, immediately find a consumer attorney to help you negotiate, settle debt with debt collection and end the lawsuit.

In the event that the debt collection agency wins the lawsuit against you, they will be able to collect debt from you with the court’s permission. However, in order to collect money from you, there are particular actions the debt collection agency must take to successfully collect debt.

Normally, the most common legal actions the debt collector asks the court for authorization to collect are:

Levy your bank accounts

If the court permits the debt collector to levy your bank account, it will issue an order asking your bank to withhold a certain amount of money from your bank accounts for a certain period of time.

Garnish your wages

If the court issues the debt collector an order to garnish your wages, your employer will receive an order to withhold a certain percentage of money from your paychecks for a period of time to pay down the debt you owe.

Take your personal properties

Things like valuable cars, boats or bikes can be taken away and sold in auction, if the court gives the permission to the debt collection agency.  All the proceeds will be used to pay off your debt. If not enough proceeds to pay off debt, the debt collection agency is permitted to collect the insufficiency amount from you.

Place a lien against your assets.

Another legal action that the debt collector can do is to place a lien, a judgment lien on your assets; either it’s a personal property or a real property. Once the lien is placed on your asset, you won’t be able to sell it or borrow against it without paying off the debt you owe to the debt collector.

So, if you have no bank accounts, no assets, and the state where you live does not allow wage garnishment, then the debt collection agency cannot take money from you legally. The only things the debt collector can do are to damage your credit scores and continue to make collection calls.