Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
My husband had a student loan back in 1995-1996. He defaulted on that loan obviously. Today we found out that his wages are going to be garnished 15%. *The loan was taken out in GA or AR but we now live in Florida. *He is the Head of Household for our family which includes our 9 month old daughter. We are barely paying our bills as it is and are seeking advice from anywhere right now on this matter. He spoke to the DOE collection agency today who state that Florida Statute 222.11 does not apply b/c this is a Federal loan. *We have not received any Judgment papers in the mail and are going to try to contact his HR department tomorrow to see if we can get a copy from them. What we've been told so far is that our only option is to file an Objection based on Hardship. But that won't stop the garnishment immediately. I think that is all we know so far.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
You need to find out (a) where the judgment was entered, (b) the terms of the garnishment order, and (c) from the court file, how they obtained a judgment without notice to your spouse.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
Hi Aaron, thank you so much for responding so quickly. I'm going to ask what may be a dumb question. How do we find this information out other than calling his employers corporate office? Also, after we find out all of this info what is our next step? Finally, what other recourse do we have?
Thank you so much again.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
Try getting information form whomever is threatening the garnishment, or getting a copy of any garnishment order served on the employer, and follow up based on that.
Your recourse, if any, will depend upon what you discover.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
My husbands been on the phone all morning with the DOE office and their collection office. They keep telling him they cannot give him information over the phone, they won't fax the info, and he should have received papers in the mail. We've received no papers in the mail. He has managed to find out exactly what loan they were talking about, the loan amount, and the additional fees (collection) amounts. That's it. I was told by someone else that we need to contact the Judge's office who filed the Judgment, but we can't get that information from anyone, and they want to start garnishing his very next paycheck 15%.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
Hi again Aaron, we were vinally able to get a copy of the Order. It says "Unitd States Government Wage Garnishment Order (SF-329B)". It has all of the information, his SSN, amount of debt, creditor info. He has spoken to the creditor many times and they only say there is nothing they can do. Now that we have the Order, what is our next step? Is there any way for us to stop the garnishment? Is there a law in favor of a head of household with 2 dependents, a single income family?
Thank you for all your help.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
You need to find out (a) where the judgment was entered, (b) the terms of the garnishment order (which you should be able to determine by reading it), and (c) from the court file, how they obtained a judgment without notice to your spouse.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
(a)Is a Judgment and Garnishment Order the same thing? As far as a Judgment he was told a Judgment is not needed b/c this is Federal. The only people we are able to obtain any information from is the Credit Corporation (VanRu). The DOE will not give us any info b/c the Credit Corp has the account now. The only information on the actual Garnishment Order is the date of the Order, Date Mailed to Employer, Credit Agency Tracking No., Employee Name, SSN, Employer, Mailing address, Creditor Agency & mailing address, contact name & number, and amount due.
(b) As for the terms of the Garnishment, they are not on the paper, but we were told that his check will be garnished 15%, the maximum allowed, starting tomorrow.
(c) The Credit Corp says we should have received the papers already in the mail. Which means they are saying that they have notified us.
We cannot seem to get any information about this other than from VanRu who do not want to help us at all. We have filed a request for a Written Hearing based on his employment status, less than 1 year employed and fired from his previous employment for lack of available work.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
A) No.
B) Then explore the court file as instructed.
C) Then explore the court file as instructed.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
What court file? There's isn't any court/judge information on the Order paper. Should we just take the garnishment order to the courthouse here or something? I don't mean to be a pain but I need just a little more direction on this.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
Any court order necessarily involves a legal action in a court, with an associated court file.
At this point, I suggest you get help from a lawyer.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
It seems I too have the EXACT same problem. None of the paperwork says which court ordered the garnishment of 15%.
I think trying to find out which court did this will be next to impossible and I'll bet the system is designed this way to make it difficult to object to wage garnishment for student loans.
I guess I will have to become self employed to avoid this garnishment scam.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
Quote:
Quoting
ggg283
It seems I too have the EXACT same problem. None of the paperwork says which court ordered the garnishment of 15%.
I think trying to find out which court did this will be next to impossible and I'll bet the system is designed this way to make it difficult to object to wage garnishment for student loans.
I guess I will have to become self employed to avoid this garnishment scam.
Thank you for writing. Atleast I know that we're not just that ignorant that we can't figure it out. My husband was told however for his garnhisment that there is no court involved. That the garnishment is coming straight from the government and overrides "everything else". I'm assuming that means the normal process. We cannot afford a lawyer and trying to go through the dispute process with the collections office right now, but will have to accept the garnishment in the mean time. Let me know if you find out anything more please.
Thanks again.
Re: Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishment
YES!
thank you. I have the exact same thing happening. I simply received a copy of a form that has a statute number at the top. I never recieved a court order, or summons to appear, or any of that. They simply sent that same form that you mentioned to my employer, which has my soc. number, ( which is how they found me as I have a different last name now) my current name, the amount owed, my employer's name and address, and the address of where my employer is to send the garnishment, how much I am being garnished ( 15%) and an 800 number if I have any questions.
There is no court order, no court file, no court anything mentioned on the form. And I didn't find out about it until I received my direct deposit notice in the mail, which included a copy of that form they sent to payroll at my employer's office.
This must be a common procedure.