Complaint Review: Credit Acceptance Corporation - Internet

Let me continue by saying you can do what ever you want.  The only thing I am providing is non-legal advice to get you to think about your situation, keep you out of the "Deadbeat" status or making it worse.

As such let me just say that it is probably in your best interest to accept the reduced settlement and move on.  Provided of course they give you the agreement in writing.

You seem to think that there is a difference between a "garnishment" and "payment arrangements".  In reality there is no difference with the exception that with a garnishment you never actually see the money that is being garnished.  They have for all intensive purposes reduced the garnishent by over half.  Again the reality is that the chances of you finding a judge who still thinks that is still too much is going to be very slim, and more on that in a minute.  Where if you push it the other attorney may have a "change of heart" and figure since you are still trying to fight it, they will recind their offer and go for the full $225/pay period. 

The othe dangerous thing about you paying them instead of the garnishment.  If you fail to make one payment as arranged, that gives them grounds to go back to the courts and request that the garnishment be put back in, AND again at the full amount.  Based on your history I would say you are taking a huge risk.

Now, let me go back over the hardship.  It appears you are making just under $1000/pay period, and you are now required to pay about $100/pay period to them.  As I said it is very unlikely that you would find a judge that would think that is still too much, especially since they COULD take over $200.  For example, you talked about utilities.  If this includes something like Cable and/or Internet a judge is not going to consider that essential and not care if you have to pay that bill or not.  Even if you are under a contract with the other company it doesn't matter.  Yes, you may end up in debt and collections with them, but that is not this case.  Same goes for your food bill, if you show them your bank statements and show ANY charges/debits to a resturant..buzz you probably have just sunk your case.  Same goes for Entertainment such as Movie Theaters or sporting events/concerts.  You pretty much have to prove that you are doing what ever you can to survive right now and would be on the street if you were required to pay this $100/pay period for the judge to reduce it any more.  That is a very tough standard to meet. 

If you still want to "fight it" the attorney has gone as far as they probably will.  So you need to go through the courts since the garnishment is a court order.  But again, if you open up that "can of worms" be prepared to end up back at square one with the higher garnishment.

A few other things to consider.  The less they take out the longer you are going to have to pay this.  You don't say how much you owe, but I would suggest not only keeping with the $100/pay period but save what ever money you can off to the side.  Yes, this means you may need to make some additional sacrafices.  When you get a good chunk of money and the balance is reduced a bit see if they will take a "lump sum" settlement and close out your case.  For example if after a few months you are down to $2300 and you were very good and able to save $1800, contact them and see if they will take the $1800 as a single payment to settle your acccount.  Not only would you save about $500 but you would be done with them.  Of course before you actually paid them the money, get it all in writing.

Oh and if you truly are that close to being homeless, you honestly may want to look at other options such as Bankruptcy. 

 Thank you for that info! After I got home from work, I thoroughly went through my paperwork. I agree with everything you wrote. The only reason I went to the finance company in the first place is that I had slow credit. I did call the company and couldn't through anyone. I called the attorney listed on the order and explained to them that 25% was too high for my income. The attorneys agreed to take $100 every payday instead of $225. They stated that they would fax an amended garnishment letter to payroll. Since its past the deadline to file in court to not have my wages garnished, who should I be speaking to for payment arrangements instead of a garnishment? The lawyer or the finance company? I do have my paperwork to show that it would create a hardship. Rent, insurance, and and utility bills. No credit cards. Thank you again for the sound advice.

When you signed the loan agreement you made a legal obligation to certain things.  With the main thing of course being making your payments on-time and for the full amount.  But more on you in a minute, let me deal with your other issue first.  As you are correct, they also have certain requirements if they want to sue you.

As to your service.  In most jurisdictions, a summons does NOT have to be served to the defendent.  As long as it is served to someone of age(over 18) at the household or where the defendent would be resonably expected to be(ie work, relatives..etc) the service is generally considered valid.  Unless you can somehow prove that you were on a 12 hour interview on that day, you are going to need more than that to prove it wasn't you.

So there are a couple of things that could happen. 

You go to court and claim a lack of proper service.  They show you were properly served..the judgement is not vacated, you still owe the judgement and are going to get your wages garnished.  In addition they may petition for additional legal fees if they can prove that you did this maliciously(ie you knew you were served and just tried to delay the garnishment).

The other possibility is that you prove that you were not properly served and the judgement is vacated.  But here you are NOT out of the woods.  The plantiff is allowed to have the case heard again, the only difference would be that you know about it and would show up.

When you show up in court, they will bring up the legal contract you signed that stated you made an agreement to make the specific payments.  They will show in the agreement that it was a secured debt against the car and your failure to pay allowed them to take these further actions.  What this agreement will NOT show is that you only had to make your payments when you could or when you wanted to.  Even if the car was abducted by aliens you still need to make the payments.  As a result the judge will once again rule against you.

The only thing that may be in your favor this second time around is trying to make arrangements to not get your wages garnished.  For this you better have your entire financial situation ready to show the judge and why the 25% would be an extreme hardship....notice the word extreme.  The judge may have sympathy for you and require you to make payments without garnishment.  But keep in mind the only thing they will really care about is things such as Child Support, housing, and resonable household expenses.  If you start showing them your Credit Card bills...you might as well just hop out of the frying pan because you are done.

So you may win the battle, but you will most likely loose the war.

Now, a few comments on the "Deadbeat Borrower".  They are a Sub-Prime lender who lends to people who have failed to show they can handle credit in the past.  The reason you are with them does NOT matter.  What makes a person who just has "bad luck" and a "Deadbeat" is the excuses thinking they can just do what ever they want.  For example, you just did not want to make your car payment because your car didn't work..that is the action of a Deadbeat who is full of excuses.   By the way if you think this company was bad...just wait until you try to get another loan with a Repo and a Judgement on your credit report.

 I understand what my responsibilities were!! However, in this great country of ours there's a thing called "Policies and Procedures" with certain companies. Maryland law states that if I'm to be given notice of a summons by a service processor. If I never received a letter of notice to be in court to give my side of the case, that's called "Improper Service". That's like playing a baseball game but not telling the other team where to play. A person may call it "winning by default" OR give the other party a chance to show. THATS what I meant by improper service. Now, if you're going to comment on my report you may do so without labeling.

YOU failed to make payments.  This is why YOU were placed with a subprime deadbeat lender in the first place because YOU gave YOURSELF a documented history of not paying YOUR bills on time.  Now you want to come up with some technicality to avoid paying this one too.  Serial deadbeat all the way, right?