My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: Texas
I have this Amex card with a 40k limit and it currently has a 35k balance. Some time ago I probably missed a payment and the interest rate is now somewhere around the max I am sure at about 28%. This card and balance has been a thorn in my side for so long that I am now ready to get drastic with it. I make enough to cover the minimum payment only which is about 1200 each month, but obviously I am getting nowhere with that kind of payment plan. I have called Amex in the past and they refuse to work with me at all. If I could lock the interest rate to something reasonable, close the card and fix the payments, I could afford to probably pay it off in about 4 or 5 years. Nobody will give me a loan for that amount on an unsecured loan. I don't have enough equity in my house to get a home loan nor do I have anything of value that I could use to secure the debt. So I am left with two actions, either bankruptcy or court. I suspect they will probably take me to court and sue me since the balance is so high. If I default the loan they may or may not work with me and offer me a plan, but I wont know until I default the loan. I would be afraid that if I default, they either don't offer me a structured plan or it's unreasonable and they take me to court and in which case I may not be any better off. I don't mind going to court and owning up to the debt if I knew that I could lock down the judgment, not accrue any additional interest and I could be offered a plan to pay it off. I know so little about civil judgments. Do they automatically attack my paycheck? My wife would never allow that to happen since she is the HR department and would be embarrassed out of a job. So although court doesn't scare us, an automatic wage garnishment would. Do they garnish wages automatically or just when you fail to meet the settlement rules? What kind of garnishment could they hit me with? I would hate to have them hit me with more garnishment then what I am currently paying in monthly payments. In type of wage garnishment would be a deal breaker for us since it would hinder our ability to conduct the kind of work we do and force us into a new and likely less profitable industry.
What if I declare bankruptcy? Could I just bankrupt one debt instead of all debts? The bottom line here is that I need a way to figure out how to fix my current debt so that I can pay the damn thing off instead of getting nowhere with the payments. Any ideas on how to do that without making my life worse?

