Can unsecured creditors garnish wages?
Unsecured creditors can only garnish your wages if they have been able get a judgment against you in court. That means they will have had to have sued you over your debt and won. Many unscrupulous collection agencies will try to threaten people with wage garnishment, as if that can happen right away when in fact it cannot. This tactic is not only unscrupulous, it is illegal. The Fair Debt Collection Act, a Federal law, prohibits collection agencies from threatening people with actions that they cannot legally take. It is true that once a judgment is entered, one of the ways they can collect is through wage garnishment, but the process to do so is neither quick nor simple. In order to actually garnish your wages, put a lien on your house, or do anything to collect on a judgment, other than ask you to pay up, the collection agency must file a writ of execution before a judge. Even then, the law protects you by only allowing up to 25% of your take home pay, sometimes less, to be garnished
