A debt question

I was reading through a thread on a livejournal community(customers_suck) about debt collectors and someone had said that you should never tell them that you can’t pay because if you do, they can take you to court sue you.

Appearently, debt collectors want you to say you can’t pay, so they can drag you into court. Is this true?

If so, why would they do that? I mean if you don’t have the $ outside of court, how would you pay if you get sued?

:dubious:

I work in the Minnesota court system. I see plenty of people with the ability to pay sued and judgments issued against them. A judgment is a lien against any real estate they own in the county. The judgment is valid for 10 years. If the debtor sells the real estate, the creditor is paid from the proceeds of the sale. People making payments against their debt are often sued for the delinquency. The creditor then has the lien against real estate as well as the power to garnish wages or levy against known bank accounts. Tell the bill collector whatever you want. They know the law and will pursue as they wish.

Look up garnished wages or levied bank accounts.

For example: Dead beat dad. He works? Garnish his wages.

Employers of dead beats (dads and others) get notified by the courts and they must forward X amount of dollars to the court/family out of the dead beat’s paycheck.

Yes, there are dead beats who ‘work under the table’ so there is no record of legit wages that can be garnished, but a collector who knows this (court/attorney/exspouse/debt agency) can notify the employer and get them in a heap of trouble).

A co worker here has her wages garnished because she skipped her student loans.