How to Stop a Debt Collector From Freezing Your Bank Account
When you don’t pay your bills on time, don’t respond to the calls from the credit card companies or the collection agencies and live under cover, you could wake up one day to find your bank account temporarily frozen. That will be a bad day if it’s the day your rent or mortgage is due! You may have missed the judgment notices in the mail (or maybe you moved). You may not even know your creditors went in to court and sued you. You have no idea they got a judgment against you and used it to empty your account. When the creditor follows legal procedures, your account may not be garnished immediately. Instead it might be temporarily frozen.
You won’t be able to get any money from your bank account, but can make deposits into it (as if you would want to!). This has a major impact if you write checks for all your payments, because once your account gets frozen by a court, the checks will start to bounce. What you want to know is how to stop a debt collector from freezing your bank account in the first place. Take calls from credit collections agencies as a warning sign and do the following to stop or avoid your bank account getting frozen by a court order.
1. Make small payments towards the debt. Even if it’s $10 a month, it might be enough to stop them suing you. (Think about this, would you rather send them $10 a month or wake up one day to find your account frozen?).
2. Ask the debt collections agency to validate your debt. Do this multiple times: it’s a great weapon that can get your debt cleared. Just send a letter to the agency asking them to validate the debt. That’s it.
3. Stop using your checking account. This is the ONLY certain way to stop a creditor freezing your account, if they have a judgment against you.
Remember: be proactive! If they have a judgment and have already frozen your account, it’s too late to hold onto your money.
*http://www.stopbillcollectors.us/articles/how-to-avoid-being-sued-by-your-creditors
*http://www.indianajustice.org/Data/DocumentLibrary/Documents/1053360095.22/do c_0105bank%20seizure.pdf
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