Wage garnishments and collections

Look, I'm just working seasonal gigs right now.

Whether you call them coupons or vouchers, it’s whatever you want to call them.

Hey everyone. Quick question. I won't bore you with the whole backstory, but long story short: the IRS has frozen my account over a debt of 35 $0.00 plus interest. Since then, I worked for about a year, but they were skimming parts of my paycheck—money that didn't even hit my protected accounts. Now the debt has ballooned to 50 $0.00, and of course, it just keeps climbing. What can I actually do here? I don't own any property or real estate, and I don't have any independent income—I'm still living with my parents. One more thing: I used to pay into an Allstate insurance policy, and since I've used that tax credit three times since I was 13, they're legally required to deposit any payouts directly into my account because of those tax credits. If I hadn't used the credit, they could have sent it anywhere. Is there any way out of this mess?

Exactly. Once the insurance company cuts you that check and drops it right into your account, your total debt starts looking a little less scary.
But let's be real—that mountain of debt is your absolute biggest headache right now, isn't it?

ruggedmaker2 said:Exactly. Once the insurance company cuts you that check and drops it right into your account, your total debt starts looking a little less scary.
But let's be real—that mountain of debt is your absolute biggest headache right now, isn't it?

My brother and I both ran our own private businesses. We dealt with tax audits all the time—usually nothing major—until the last one hit us with a massive fine because we hadn't been paying each other rent. Apparently, that meant we owed taxes on those rental payments too. I had no idea we were supposed to be charging each other rent for using our own land. A friend of mine who works at the IRS told me they basically screwed up, but they won't admit it; our only option was to appeal. We both filed an appeal, obviously, but still nothing. I actually stopped by the IRS office today to check on it, and they told me the paperwork is still sitting in New York City, gathering dust. In principle, I’m refusing to pay it—this has been dragging on since 2009. Honestly, I’ll just wait for the statute of limitations to kick in while these incompetent bureaucrats shuffle papers. I also found out I might be able to unfreeze my accounts; apparently, if an account is frozen for a year, they aren't allowed to freeze it again for another eighteen months. Now I just need to figure out if I can handle that myself or if I need to hire a lawyer. As for the statute of limitations, I have to look into how that works and what the timeline looks like.

Go back and scroll through this thread for a bit... maybe like 20 or 30 pages back. Pay extra close attention to those posts from John Clark6.
You really should've been complaining before the foreclosure hit, because now the statute of limitations works a little differently. 😉
And hey, just a word of advice: stop signing contracts you don't actually understand. Read the fine print, do your homework on whatever you're putting your name on, and if it looks like gibberish, go find a professional to talk to.
Just slapping your signature down without thinking can end up costing you a fortune.

ruggedmaker2 said:Go back and scroll through this thread for a bit... maybe like 20 or 30 pages back. Pay extra close attention to those posts from John Clark6.
You really should've been complaining before the foreclosure hit, because now the statute of limitations works a little differently. 😉
And hey, just a word of advice: stop signing contracts you don't actually understand. Read the fine print, do your homework on whatever you're putting your name on, and if it looks like gibberish, go find a professional to talk to.
Just slapping your signature down without thinking can end up costing you a fortune.

I think someone's missing the point here. I have no idea what kind of "contracts" or "signatures" you're talking about. As for the appeal—I spoke up immediately, and then again later when they tried to negotiate with me; I told them I was sticking to my original claim because I didn't do anything wrong and certainly didn't evade any taxes. They have nothing to take from me anyway—I don't own anything. They just hit my bank account, and that's that. They haven't even sent me letters about owing money anymore. Maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it. All this bureaucracy, man... ahhh.

John Clark6 said:Carl Nguyen5 - I mean, your situation is a bit different—if the delivery wasn't handled properly, you might actually have to resort to those extra legal remedies they use for cases just like this.

Nancy Richardson2 - I honestly can't believe lawyers are still trying to charge people for "notice fees" or whatever else... it was settled ages ago that there's absolutely no legal basis for that!

I actually posted this over in the Housing/Property Managers thread:
-----------------------------------------
A tenant received a formal notice from a lawyer representing their property manager regarding some unpaid HOA fees from a few months back.

Now, here is the thing—the property manager just added a line item labeled NOTICE FEE $33 (which is almost certainly the fee for that lawyer's letter).

Under consumer protection laws, charging these kinds of notice fees isn't even allowed anymore.

Does the tenant have the right to dispute that specific line item on the notice or statement? Everything else is accurate—they owe the money—but they don't want to pay these arbitrary fees if the law says they don't have to.

To be clear: the tenant missed a few monthly dues, received a notice that included those extra $33 charges, and has since paid all the outstanding dues in full... but they are refusing to pay the notice fee itself. No lawsuit has been filed, no seizure of assets, no actual legal action has been taken yet—just the notice.

Thanks.
------------------------------------------

I got a response over there, but I wanted to get your take on this too, given what I've quoted above...

Thanks.

The costs associated with those warnings shouldn't even be factored in anymore... so, honestly, I can't say I'm surprised you'd want to contest it. It’s basically just an App thing—if it goes through, it goes through, I suppose—and he’s well aware of how that works.

So, here’s the situation: I’m dealing with some outstanding debt involving Comcast.

My contract ended back in July, and I decided not to renew it because they completely failed to send me any invoices for May, June, or July.
I spent the entire summer calling them up, begging them to just send the bills so I could actually pay them. I even went down to one of their physical locations in person. Each time, they just gave me the usual runaround—"We'll send them over," "Yeah, we'll get back to you," etc.

Then, on October 27th, I get hit with a formal demand notice from Solvent LLC regarding those unpaid bills, totaling $233.

I called them immediately to explain the mess. I told them straight up: I’m a twenty-year-old student living entirely off a scholarship with zero income. I asked if we could just work out a payment plan.
They seemed fine with that, so we agreed on three installments of $83 each.
I paid the first installment right at the start of November, fully expecting to clear the rest over the next two months.
But then, today—November 25th—I receive a pre-lawsuit notice stating that I have until November 28th to settle the full $150 balance, or they’ll move toward garnishment.

What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to eat? To make matters worse, this was supposedly sent on November 18th, yet I only received it today, the 25th (and I live in New York City, just like they do).
If I pay this now, I’ll be left with absolutely nothing. And when I call them to point out our agreement, they suddenly play dumb, claiming we never discussed an installment plan in the first place.

I'm stuck in a bind: do I pay the money and go broke waiting for my next scholarship check, or do I hold out and risk the legal action, which will likely snowball into even higher costs with court fees and whatever else gets tacked on?

It honestly feels absurd that someone would come after me for a debt of $100. For a student, that's more than half my monthly stipend. If they had just sent the bills when they were supposed to, none of this would even be an issue.

Any advice?

Just wanted to give a heads-up to anyone thinking about trying to fight these enforcement actions in court, just in case you're wondering if it's even worth the hassle:
I got hit with an enforcement notice from AT&T dating all the way back to 2003. With interest, we're looking at roughly $3167, while the principal alone is about $833. I actually worked out a payment plan and managed to knock out four installments of $317 each. In the meantime, I filed a lawsuit because I hadn't received a single notification in eleven years—not even a heads-up that they were starting enforcement proceedings. Since I’d already paid off the principal plus some interest over those four payments, I figured that would be plenty for them. However, at my second hearing today, the judge basically told me straight to my face that I have to pay the entire remaining balance plus legal fees. It feels like the court is totally at fault here, and honestly, it's like I was born in the wrong country. He did mention I could appeal the decision once it's sent to me, but when I asked him what on earth I was supposed to appeal, he literally said, "I don't know."
So, there you have it. If you're planning on going toe-to-toe with them, consider this your warning regarding how things will likely turn out.

So, did you actually sit down with an attorney for some advice, or were you just playing "DIY lawyer" on your own? Honestly—and I might be overstepping here—I’d say that whole process sounds like a complete mess. But hey, it’s not his place to lecture you on whether filing an appeal is worth your time or not, since he isn't the one making the final call on your appeal anyway.

Is there seriously nobody out there who can actually help me?

I ended up hiring a lawyer I wouldn't trust to watch my sheep, if I'm being honest. Looking back, she was completely useless. Two months after the garnishment stopped and the actual lawsuit kicked off, she still hasn't a clue what's going on. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here dutifully paying my installments. All she really had to do was walk into the courthouse and ask for a status update on the case, but apparently, that was too much to ask—even though she had no problem filing an appeal just to charge me more $400

Look, I’m a sailor by trade, so I’m rarely hanging around town.

btw, if the judge decides to just sit on my appeal and does nothing, who actually makes the call then?

Daniel Chavez9 said:Is there seriously nobody out there who can actually help me?

How?
Look, you know your own situation better than anyone else does.

Honestly, it sounds totally sketchy that Comcast hasn't been sending you bills for that long. Something doesn't add up here. If you gave them your actual info—like, an actual address—they definitely would've been mailing those bills.
Since you went down there anyway to ask about the bills, why didn't you just demand they print out your payment details right then and there (which they can totally do) or at least shoot them over to your email?

Or why not just set up an account on their website? You could just download all those bills directly to your laptop.
Check it out, right here.

Personally, I get my internet and TV through one provider, and my phone is on a contract with another, and I download every single bill from their customer portals. I don't get anything in the mail. I log in, download the bill, pay it, and boom—done.

If you stop paying a debt for a few months, it’s just common sense that collections will follow.
If there's absolutely no way you can settle it by the deadline, they'll freeze your accounts. At that point, you should open a protected account for protected income—and since a scholarship counts as protected income, they aren't allowed to seize it. Then you just chip away at the debt as you can afford to.
Sure, you'll be stuck dealing with interest and collection fees, but hey, it is what it is.
Just make sure you get that protected account set up before your scholarship hits your bank, so the IRS can notify the payer in time about the protected account number.

ruggedmaker2 Asks:
How exactly does that work?
Look, at the end of the day, you're the only one who truly knows what kind of mess you're dealing with. You're the only one sitting in the driver's seat, so you're the one who actually understands the reality of your situation.

It sounds almost impossible to me that Comcast hasn't been sending you bills for this long. Something about that story just doesn't sit right with me. If you actually gave them the right information—I mean, if you provided a legitimate service address—they definitely would have been getting those invoices out to you.
Since you were already heading over there to grill them about those bills, why didn't you just ask them to print out your payment details right then and there? They can easily do that. Or, at the very least, you could have had them shoot the info over to your email. It’s not like they make it difficult.

Why didn't you just open an account on their website? It’s actually pretty straightforward—you can just download all those bills directly onto your own computer. It saves so much hassle in the long run.
Take a look at this. Right here. .

I’ve got my home internet and TV bundled through one provider, while my mobile plan is handled by another entirely. I don't bother with paper statements at all—nothing ever shows up in my mailbox anyway. My routine is pretty straightforward: I just log in to their respective websites, download the PDF, settle the bill, and call it a day. It's efficient, if a bit disconnected.

If you stop paying off a debt for a few months, it’s just basic math at that point—you can pretty much expect a garnishment or some kind of legal seizure to follow. It's not a mystery; it's just how the system works.
Look, if there’s absolutely no way you can settle that debt by the deadline, they’re going to freeze your accounts. It’s just how the system works. At that point, your best move is to set up a protected account for your shielded income—and since a scholarship counts as protected funds, they aren't legally allowed to touch it for garnishment. Once that’s sorted, you can just chip away at the balance bit by bit, at whatever pace you can actually manage.
Sure, you’ll be looking at interest piling up and those inevitable legal fees from the repossession process, but honestly, it is what it is.
Just make sure you get that protected account set up well before your usual scholarship payout date hits. You want to give the IRS enough lead time to send the official notice regarding the protected account number over to the payer, otherwise, things might get messy with the timing.

Alright, let me break this down for you.

Back in March, I moved to a new place and made sure to notify customer support right away. You’d think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong. They completely dropped the ball and failed to update my delivery address with the billing department. Despite me calling them over and over again to fix the mistake, they kept sending my statements to my old place near Central Park all the way through June. It’s frustrating, but at least I have everything recorded—every single one of those calls was logged, so if I ever need to prove they ignored me, I've got the receipts.
Back when I was with Comcast, the app only let me peek at my call charges; I could never actually pull up the full itemized bill with the 2D barcode. Now that I've switched over to AT&T, I’m running into the exact same limitation. However, I managed to get an automatic payment plan set up with them right away, so at least I won't have to deal with any late payment headaches.
At the end of June, I moved back home to Cleveland. When I made the switch, I specifically called to have my final bills forwarded to my new address, but they never showed up. So, I headed down to the local Comcast service center in person to get it sorted out. They were all apologetic, promising me that the statements would be sent over shortly, but once again, nothing arrived. I eventually gave them another call to see if I could just wire the balance directly to their account number to settle things, but they told me that wasn't an option because my contract had already been terminated and I was technically no longer a customer. Honestly, being met with that kind of bureaucratic nonsense—which makes zero sense given I'm trying to actually pay them—just completely drained me. I ended up giving up on the whole thing.

Since October, I haven't received a single bill at any of my previous addresses, nor have they shown up at my primary residence. It’s like my mail just vanished into thin air.
Back in November, PrimaSolvent reached out to let me know I needed to settle my entire outstanding balance. Once I laid out the whole mess I’d been dealing with regarding Comcast, they actually went ahead and touched base with them. It turns out Comcast apologized for the headache, but according to the law, PrimaSolvent still has to collect the debt regardless. We eventually managed to work things out, and we agreed on a three-month installment plan to get it all squared away. $83.

And then they went and pulled that classic blunder—sending me a formal notice of intent to sue even though I’m already on a structured installment plan. It’s one of those "oops, we didn't check our own files" moments that makes you wonder how these big outfits function at all.

The installment plan officially kicked off on November 1st, which means the second payment isn't even due until December 1st. Yet, here we are, receiving a pre-lawsuit warning on November 18th. If I had missed a payment or failed to stick to the schedule, I’d certainly understand why they were breathing down my neck. But this? This makes absolutely no sense. It's just absurd.

So, I put this question out to you all—my esteemed legal minds on this forum—and I’m still chewing on it. How is it actually possible that someone who is on a structured installment plan, and is paying those installments religiously on schedule, suddenly gets hit with a formal notice of intent to sue? Is this just some aggressive intimidation tactic by the bank, is it an error within the App, or is there some legitimate legal loophole that makes this a real possibility?

Also, how is this even possible when we're talking about such a pathetic amount? A measly 400USD.

If someone owes over 20,000, I get it. They go after you. But doing this to me?

Basically, I have $200, I pay those 400, and I’m left with $67 to survive the entire month.

All I did was ask if I really needed to pay the full amount right now, or if it would be smarter to just ignore the notice, pretend it never arrived, and just pay the next installment on schedule like I originally planned.

I honestly thought I might find some actual support or helpful advice here. But no. It’s easier for everyone to act like it’s entirely my fault—like, "too bad for you," even when you're just a 20-year-old student trying to get by—rather than actually offering some practical perspective on what makes sense.

And frankly, I don't see what they can even accomplish with this legal action. If my scholarship gets deposited into a different account, there’s nothing for them to freeze or seize anyway.

Why aren't they focusing their energy on the people who actually owe money and have assets worth taking?

Daniel Chavez9 said:

ruggedmaker2 Asks:
How exactly does that work?
Look, at the end of the day, you're the only one who truly knows what kind of mess you're dealing with. You're the only one sitting in the driver's seat, so you're the one who actually understands the reality of your situation.

It sounds almost impossible to me that Comcast hasn't been sending you bills for this long. Something about that story just doesn't sit right with me. If you actually gave them the right information—I mean, if you provided a legitimate service address—they definitely would have been getting those invoices out to you.
Since you were already heading over there to grill them about those bills, why didn't you just ask them to print out your payment details right then and there? They can easily do that. Or, at the very least, you could have had them shoot the info over to your email. It’s not like they make it difficult.

Why didn't you just open an account on their website? It’s actually pretty straightforward—you can just download all those bills directly onto your own computer. It saves so much hassle in the long run.
Take a look at this. Right here. .

I’ve got my home internet and TV bundled through one provider, while my mobile plan is handled by another entirely. I don't bother with paper statements at all—nothing ever shows up in my mailbox anyway. My routine is pretty straightforward: I just log in to their respective websites, download the PDF, settle the bill, and call it a day. It's efficient, if a bit disconnected.

If you stop paying off a debt for a few months, it’s just basic math at that point—you can pretty much expect a garnishment or some kind of legal seizure to follow. It's not a mystery; it's just how the system works.
Look, if there’s absolutely no way you can settle that debt by the deadline, they’re going to freeze your accounts. It’s just how the system works. At that point, your best move is to set up a protected account for your shielded income—and since a scholarship counts as protected funds, they aren't legally allowed to touch it for garnishment. Once that’s sorted, you can just chip away at the balance bit by bit, at whatever pace you can actually manage.
Sure, you’ll be looking at interest piling up and those inevitable legal fees from the repossession process, but honestly, it is what it is.
Just make sure you get that protected account set up well before your usual scholarship payout date hits. You want to give the IRS enough lead time to send the official notice regarding the protected account number over to the payer, otherwise, things might get messy with the timing.

Alright, let me break this down for you.

Back in March, I moved to a new place and made sure to notify customer support right away. You’d think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong. They completely dropped the ball and failed to update my delivery address with the billing department. Despite me calling them over and over again to fix the mistake, they kept sending my statements to my old place near Central Park all the way through June. It’s frustrating, but at least I have everything recorded—every single one of those calls was logged, so if I ever need to prove they ignored me, I've got the receipts.
Back when I was with Comcast, the app only let me peek at my call charges; I could never actually pull up the full itemized bill with the 2D barcode. Now that I've switched over to AT&T, I’m running into the exact same limitation. However, I managed to get an automatic payment plan set up with them right away, so at least I won't have to deal with any late payment headaches.
At the end of June, I moved back home to Cleveland. When I made the switch, I specifically called to have my final bills forwarded to my new address, but they never showed up. So, I headed down to the local Comcast service center in person to get it sorted out. They were all apologetic, promising me that the statements would be sent over shortly, but once again, nothing arrived. I eventually gave them another call to see if I could just wire the balance directly to their account number to settle things, but they told me that wasn't an option because my contract had already been terminated and I was technically no longer a customer. Honestly, being met with that kind of bureaucratic nonsense—which makes zero sense given I'm trying to actually pay them—just completely drained me. I ended up giving up on the whole thing.

Since October, I haven't received a single bill at any of my previous addresses, nor have they shown up at my primary residence. It’s like my mail just vanished into thin air.
Back in November, PrimaSolvent reached out to let me know I needed to settle my entire outstanding balance. Once I laid out the whole mess I’d been dealing with regarding Comcast, they actually went ahead and touched base with them. It turns out Comcast apologized for the headache, but according to the law, PrimaSolvent still has to collect the debt regardless. We eventually managed to work things out, and we agreed on a three-month installment plan to get it all squared away. $83.

And then they went and pulled that classic blunder—sending me a formal notice of intent to sue even though I’m already on a structured installment plan. It’s one of those "oops, we didn't check our own files" moments that makes you wonder how these big outfits function at all.

The installment plan officially kicked off on November 1st, which means the second payment isn't even due until December 1st. Yet, here we are, receiving a pre-lawsuit warning on November 18th. If I had missed a payment or failed to stick to the schedule, I’d certainly understand why they were breathing down my neck. But this? This makes absolutely no sense. It's just absurd.

So, I put this question out to you all—my esteemed legal minds on this forum—and I’m still chewing on it. How is it actually possible that someone who is on a structured installment plan, and is paying those installments religiously on schedule, suddenly gets hit with a formal notice of intent to sue? Is this just some aggressive intimidation tactic by the bank, is it an error within the App, or is there some legitimate legal loophole that makes this a real possibility?

Also, how is this even possible when we're talking about such a pathetic amount? A measly 400USD.

If someone owes over 20,000, I get it. They go after you. But doing this to me?

Basically, I have $200, I pay those 400, and I’m left with $67 to survive the entire month.

All I did was ask if I really needed to pay the full amount right now, or if it would be smarter to just ignore the notice, pretend it never arrived, and just pay the next installment on schedule like I originally planned.

I honestly thought I might find some actual support or helpful advice here. But no. It’s easier for everyone to act like it’s entirely my fault—like, "too bad for you," even when you're just a 20-year-old student trying to get by—rather than actually offering some practical perspective on what makes sense.

And frankly, I don't see what they can even accomplish with this legal action. If my scholarship gets deposited into a different account, there’s nothing for them to freeze or seize anyway.

Why aren't they focusing their energy on the people who actually owe money and have assets worth taking?

Look, I’m no lawyer, but here is how it played out in my own experience.
I owed the IRS money, so I went down to their office to request an installment agreement.
Eventually, a notice arrived at my house approving the payment plan.
But after I missed a few payments, the IRS issued a decision to suspend the installment plan, and then the collection process kicked in.

The bottom line is this: if you have an official decision regarding an installment plan—and we aren't just talking about some casual verbal handshake with a clerk at the window—they shouldn't be jumping straight to collections without cause, right?

I honestly think the issue stems from everything being handled over the phone without any actual paperwork—it’s such a headache! Maybe the person you spoke with just didn't bother to log into the system that you requested an installment plan. Or, if I had to guess, maybe their internal management is a bit messy—you know, where one department says one thing and another department says something completely different, and suddenly nobody knows who is responsible for what (which, let's be honest, seems to be a pretty common struggle here in the States). Plus, setting up payment plans works quite differently depending on whether you're dealing with the government—like the IRS or local municipal offices—versus private companies. It's all about knowing exactly which authority actually has the power to make things happen.

Look, I handle all my payments through PrimaSolvent, and honestly, I highly doubt they even have the authority to issue a verbal agreement for an installment plan.
Everything we discussed was strictly a verbal handshake deal.

That’s exactly why I asked you guys earlier—who actually is PrimaSolvent? Are those legal threats just a scare tactic to rattle people, or are they legitimately hitting bank accounts?

My old man dealt with some IRS issues once, and when the notice arrived, he was forced to sign off just to acknowledge he’d received it.

I haven't signed a single thing, and to top it off, I actually found one of those notices sitting in my neighbor's mailbox.

Technically, I could probably claim I never even received it, couldn't I?