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1. Can Debt Collectors Find Your Bank Accounts

I haven’t talked to my former roommate Patti in years. But it only took Bill Bartmann, a veteran of the debt collection industry, minutes to pull up her name and the address of the house we shared in the early 1990s.Less than a day after I asked Bartmann to see what he could find about me, he provided me with a long list of the addresses of places I’d lived over the years - including my college dorm address, which I would be very hard pressed to recall myself.

He also dug up a list of relatives and details about them, including my husband and father’s ages and first five digits of their Social Security numbers; and former neighbors (some of whom I'd never met), along with their ages, first of their SSNs and their phone numbers.He found all this using nothing more than my name, and the information was spot on. Even if you wanted to try to hide from debt collectors, it would be nearly impossible to do so.“Every piece of data you can imagine, even your phone records, watch out - we got it,” says Alexis Moore, a debt collection investigator and industry consultant.

With Debt Collection, Your Bank Account Could Be At Risk A 1968 federal law allows debt collectors not only to garnish wages but to take from a debtor's bank account. Consumer advocates say the. Under Federal Law, a collection agency or debt collector can only withdraw money from your bank account if it obtains a judgment against you. According to Section 809 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the collection agency must first give you 30 days, through written notice to take care of the debt. Can a debt collector garnish my bank account or my wages? If a debt collector has a court judgment, then it may be able to garnish your bank account or wages. Certain debts owed to the government may also result in garnishment, even without a judgment.

Can Debt Collectors Find Your Bank Accounts

Most people “have no clue how cyberspace has made it simple as a click of the mouse to find anyone anywhere at anytime,” she adds. If debt collectors want to find you, they have many tools at their disposal. If they can’t locate you, or want to learn more about your ability to pay a debt, they can turn to “skip tracing” tools as they are called in the industry. What are some of the ways they do this?Information You ProvideDebtors themselves are one of the best sources of information, say most collectors.

They start with the information provided by their customer - the lender or company to whom the money was originally owed. This may include 'credit applications, agreements, contracts, personal guarantees, purchase orders and/or emails or orders for services or products,' says debt collection expert Michelle Dunn.In fact, this is the data many collectors prefer. 'Debt collectors don’t want to have to skip trace to find a consumer,' says Nick Jarman, chief operations at Delta Outsource Group Inc., a collection agency. 'A lot of it is counterproductive. We want to use the information provided by the original creditor.' That means that if you filled out an application listing your mom as the nearest relative not living with you, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the collector calls her when they can’t find you.Credit Reports & ScoresA debt collector trying to collect a debt you owe typically will be able to pull your credit reports, though not all do. The reason they might not?

Cost.Both Roger Weiss, chief operations officer at collection agency CACI, and Jarman say their firms are likely to use credit scores before they will pull a consumer’s full credit reports, because the first option is cheaper. Weiss also says his firm is cautious about pulling credit because it creates credit inquiries that.

“We are very careful because we don’t want to place a hard inquiry,” he says.But a full report can be helpful - if a collector knows what to look for, Moore says. “A(n) experienced vet investigator knows that every piece of data is vital - so the credit inquiries, charged-off accounts, address history, name variations all mean something and are invaluable tools.”You can find out if a collector has reviewed your credit reports or credit scores by getting your from all three major credit reporting agencies. Any request for your report - or scores - will be visible on your report. (If you want to see how your collection accounts are impacting your credit scores, you can use a free tool like the, which shows you two of your credit scores for free and explains the major factors that are helping or hurting you.)DatabasesWhen Bartmann, who is now president of the Center for Consumer Recovery, gathered information about me, he was tapping into just a few of the many databases that collect and sell information about consumers. “As a debt collector you can sign up for a whole litany of services,” he says. “In an era of big data they have gathered all kinds of information about us, some with your permission, sometimes without it.”Some resources are available for free, such as WhitePages.com, Weiss points out. “Then there are paid compilation services, like when people register for (contests) or change their address.”LexisNexis Accurint and SearchAmerica are two examples of popular databases Dunn mentioned.

Accurint bills itself as a “direct connection to over 37 billion current public records” while SearchAmerica says it provides “a much more accurate model for predicting the likelihood that a consumer will pay their medical bills.”In addition to checking what’s reported about you at the three major credit reporting agencies for free once a year, you can get free reports about yourself from some other national consumer reporting agencies, if they have data about you. But it would be a tough, and often futile, task to track down all your information from all sources.Social MediaDodging debts? You may want to think twice about posting to social media that picture of the jewelry you just gave your girlfriend. Unless your privacy settings are high, that information may be perused by anyone, including a collector, who may be looking for information about your income, assets or spending patterns.“Yes, bill collectors do use social media to find their debtors,” says Natasha Carmon, a writer who says she has worked a variety of collection jobs.“In a divorce case I discovered a wife had obtained a new vehicle through pictures on her Facebook page,” says attorney Tiffany S. “The vehicle was considered marital property because the parties were still married at the time and it helped my clients negotiating position on other matters at settlement.” She also says she has used LinkedIn profiles to find where debtors are employed in an effort to garnish wages.

She goes on to say:“We peruse Facebook and social media pages and even if the consumer isn't posting about their bank account, they have often times liked their bank's page to indicate to us where they bank. And consumers with assets they really cherish - collectibles, nice cars, motorcycles, antiques - oftentimes place pictures of those items on their social media.”Not all collectors use social media to track down information about debtors. Weiss and Jarman say their firms have made a “business decision” not to, in part due to security concerns. And it’s not clear at the moment what type of social media information collectors can use without violating consumer protection and privacy laws. But for the moment it’s probably safe to say that anything you post is fair game.Even with all this information available, there’s still some that’s off limit to collectors. “The database I’d love to get ahold of is the Domino’s (Pizza) database,” says Weiss.

“Everyone’s in there.”.

Almost everyone has heard of the IRS freezing accounts and taking assets to satisfy old tax bills. Even though they don’t have quite the same extent of power, many state laws do authorize private sector creditors to seize money from a consumer’s bank account after they have complied with certain procedures.

This debt collection technique is called. Creditor JudgmentsBefore a creditor can garnish your bank accounts, they must establish that there is a valid debt and then procure a against you. Many people get judgments because they fail to respond to a notice of the lawsuit at all.

The thought process includes: “It’s going to happen anyway, so why do anything to stop it?” You always want to respond even if the debt allegation is true. If you do not respond, the amount of the debt can be increased by fees and interest which will further increase the amount of the debt. If you respond, you may be able to negotiate a payment plan, without a judgment being entered against you. If a judgment is entered, you can also try to minimize the number of tacked-on fees and expenses.

How Garnishment WorksOnce a judgment is entered against you by a creditor, they can then petition the court to garnish your wages or bank account and have those funds turned over to them to satisfy the judgment. Some states do not permit garnishment for, like credit card accounts.

For those that do, here is a brief overview of how garnishment works:First, a creditor takes you to court, wins, and gets a entered against you. A judgment is a court order that says you do owe a specified amount to the creditor and they are entitled to recover that amount.Second, if you still fail to pay the amount the court ordered you to pay, the creditor can then ask the court to issue what is called a writ of garnishment (or your state’s equivalent). After a writ of garnishment is issued, they then serve it on someone who owes you money (such as an employer) or is holding money for you (such as a bank). A writ of garnishment will usually provide directions on how a third party is to withhold money and who is to receive the seized funds. For example, your bank is served with a writ of garnishment for a $1000 judgment, but you only have $500 in your bank account. The writ will tell the bank how much of the $500 they are to withdraw from your account. The writ will also instruct the bank on whether to send the funds directly to the creditor or to the registry of the court.Third, after receiving payment, the court turns the money over to the creditor who holds the judgment.

The garnishment process costs a small fee (around $20 in most states), plus the costs of serving the papers. These fees are frequently added to the total amount of the debt. Limitations on GarnishmentStates that authorize garnishment will place limitations on what and how much can be garnished. Typically, only disposable earnings can be seized. This means that some assets are exempt from collection, such as Social Security benefits or child support payments. However, while a creditor cannot garnish a Social Security check, if the check is directly deposited into a checking account, a creditor can then use the funds to satisfy their judgment. To do this an account will be “frozen.” This means, the debtor cannot withdraw any money from the account.

After a set period of time, typically 60-90 days, the money is paid to the creditor. If an exempt asset is frozen, you may file an objection with the court during the waiting period and claim your exempt funds. All remaining, non-exempt funds will be paid over to your creditor.Additional exceptions or exemptions may apply to your situation based on your state’s laws. When you receive notice of a garnishment action, consult with an who specializes in consumer or debt collection laws to learn how these exceptions work. Continuing to ignore the debt obligation will only cause more damage to your credit rating and your bank balance.