Just got off the phone with a caller whose bank account has been attached by a creditor to whom she owed money. It was a credit card, and the amount owed was about $2,300.00. The caller received a notice from her bank that told her that the payments that were prearranged to come out of her account were not going to come out at all because the creditor had frozen her
entire account.
There wasn’t enough money to pay the creditor who sued her. They were owed $2,300.00, as I noted above, but the caller’s directly deposited paycheck left her with about $1,500.00
in her account, enough normally to pay the bills she needed to pay. But now that money is frozen, and about to be taken by the creditor who froze the account.
The caller asked: “Can this creditor really do that? It’s only a credit card that I owe. And I was told that they can’t do that.”
Yes, they can.
If you ignore that lawsuit and lose, and you do not appeal, or you appeal and lose, the creditor can obtain a judgment against you. That judgment can attach to just about anything that you own: a house, a car, a bank account, a quad, a motorcycle, your tools. There are exceptions; You can keep about $300.00 in cash, a Bible, a sewing machine, clothes, and some other stuff. So start sewing.
What can she do?
She can talk with us at Steidl and Steinberg look into filing for either a reorganization under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code or a straight Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. If she is qualified, she may be able to get all of the frozen money back, and better yet, she can work with an attorney on a plan to either pay back some or all of the remainder of the debt, or, in many instances, she
can get rid of the debt completely.
Don’t ignore that lawsuit notice. Don’t wait to take action when you get it: call us at Steidl and Steinberg right away. There are some things that are good frozen, like ice cream
cones and hockey games. But bank accounts are not one of those things.