I am at work, dipshit. I don’t get laid off until the Treasury debt gets reported to COD and the admin folks at the department of education.
You read well, don’t you?
I don’t know about you Wilbo, but when my computer died I used one at work, at the library, at my friends house and my next door neighbor until the UPS man brought my new one.
Personal insults aren’t allowed in this forum. This is a formal warning: don’t do this again.
There may be some holes in this story but you might want to try a little harder to find one.
I tried the department of education thing already, but they aren’t using the department of education’s debt collection system to do the garnishments (I used to adminster the DCS when I worked at Raytheon in Greenville, TX) they are using Treasury’s financial managment system (FMS) to do the garnishing. I am definately going to contact the debt collection lawsuit defense guy. I believe I have complete right to the funds back because according to the congressman’s office, they were supposed to have a hearing and a judgement before they can start garnishing funds from a person. None of that happened.
I really wish that the department of education was the ones that had this messed up because I know people that work there and could have gotten this resolved a long time ago.
I am failing to understand why FMS can flag debt as department of education without it running through ED’s system… and how it can revoke my access to NSLDS, COD, EDExpress, and all the other fun little systems that are a requirement of my job.
Hey man, I am really sorry to read about this absolutely fucked-up situation. If I were in a position to send a bit of $$$ your way for you to help retain a lawyer I would do it in a heartbeat.
This situation would have me up in arms, and looking for vengance—You are handling your misfortune with a lot of restraint.
I wish you the best, and hope that you can get some kind of resolution that will allow you to keep YOUR home—Matthew
I am hoping that I can get my congressman’s office to pull favors and I can get one for per bono… it would be nice.
I am not about to Braveheart Treasury yet but it might be coming. My HR office is trying to see if they can rush the cashing out of my retirement when I am let go. It usually takes a few months but they could rush it. I am hoping that it isn’t eligible for garnishment. I would have taken it out already but I am on the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and its a 403b. They won’t let you take any of the funds while you are currently employed in the TRS system. That might help save the house or get a lawyer with. I think I will walk away with about 8500 dollars.
They aren’t going to Wells Fargo they are going to some mysterious CREDITOR 33 that had write access in 2002 to FMS. I am sorry if its all confusing. Its really confusing.
Wilbo, I am sorry I called you a dipshit, that wasn’t a right thing to do, nor was giving you the up yours. Thats inappropriate and I shouldn’t have acted that way. I was wrong to do so.
But if you have a question, you could be more constructive than labeling me a liar or whatever you are trying to do. If you just want to snark, go ahead, but I am not lying about anything. Perhaps if you have a question you could ask it so I might answer.
Who knows you may have the magic idea that could help me keep my house. But being rude doesn’t do anything but make you look prickish. Nor does me being rude back which I shouldn’t have been.
So…
Agency C says you owe Agency A and B x $s. And is trying to collect the debt.
Agency A and B have SENT YOU LETTERS saying that you don’t owe them a dime.
Yet still, Agency C is bound and determined to collect. To the point of garnishing your wages and having you lose your house and job.
And a congressman’s office isn’t making headway cutting through the red tape.
I’d be in a clock tower with a rifle by now.
I was under the impression that you could only be garnished after a court orders it, unless it’s by the IRS. Certainly a mystery creditor couldn’t take your paycheck without a court order.
Are they actually taking money out of your paycheck through your employer before you get it, or are they siphoning it from your bank account.
It sounds to me as if you banked on getting a big tax refund to help w/ some bills - possibly the mortgage that was already behind (otherwise why the foreclosure so quickly) and somehow that got taken through some mix-up in the system. Because you didn’t get the refund you’d expected, you’re out of cash and can’t afford to catch up on the mortgage you were already behind in.
It might help us understand your situation if you bullet point the timeline w/o a lot of extraneous information. Just the quick and dirty facts of when things started and what exactly happened (court orders, lawsuit judgements, talking w/ treasury).
Is there any chance your current employer will hire you back once this is taken care of? Can’t they transfer you to a position that isn’t security-sensitive, even if it means you spend a few weeks pulling weeds?
I just keep remembering a line by Heinlein, who said that there were two types of payroll sergeants: the fairy godfathers, who would go through your file and find every single thing they could get you extra pay for, and the assholes, who could not be moved to sympathy with a truckload of TNT.
Essentially thats the case. Treasury says they don’t have to acknowledge any paperwork, it has to be sent through the servicer of the debt. The servicer is this law firm Linebarger, Blair, Groggins, and Sampson. When calling them, they say they have reported to Treasury that they don’t feel this is my debt and forwarded the dispute to Treasury. Treasury feels that they don’t have to do dick because they “substantiated the debt twice already.” They didn’t do that because they can’t. The congressman’s office is trying to get Treasury to tell them someone that they can send all of this paperwork to, but that didn’t work so they are making them substanciate the debt. Treasury is having trouble doing this.
It seems to me that there are too many different operations under Treasury and they don’t like to or aren’t used to working together to solve issues such as this.
The congressman’s office told me the exact same thing. There has to be a court date and a judgement. The congressman’s office is requesting that Treasury provide the paperwork that this was done, but the can’t seem to find it.
The house wasn’t ever late. I had to use my savings and the money in the checking account a few days before my tax return was scheduled to arrive to cover medical costs of my mother. She has congestive heart failure and has maxed out her medical insurance so its pretty expensive to have it maintained. They were short some money and since I had this large tax return coming in mere days I agreed to give them what I had on hand to help cover it. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t medically necessary.
If the tax return had shown up it would have covered the fact that the money I had was gone to cover her test (some test where they have to run a camera in her veins). If they had the funds to cover it the tax return being garnished wouldn’t have destroyed everything. Its just the most horrible timing ever.
I am going to write a time line here in a few minutes in Notepad then copy and paste it here to help.
They would but we are under a hiring freeze because we can’t pay the medical insurance bill for the employees. The governor in his infinate wisdom has decided that anyone that works at a junior or community college is no longer going to have their insurance covered by the state… so we are paying for it currently out of the building maintenence budget.
Here is the timeline.
Summer 2009
-
June - Receive bill with no account number addressed to my last name only requesting immediate payment to Treasury for amount of 5800 odd dollars and payment be made to Treasury care of Linebarger. Replied with a letter stating that they needed to substanciate the debt and I didn’t owe anyone anything. They had thirty days to respond to the notice. I got the letter from my friend’s wife whom is a credit counselor.
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July - After 30 days I still didn’t hear anything from Linebarger. Thought matter was settled. Received another bill, however, from Linebarger requesting immediate payment for 10,500 odd dollars payable immediately to Treasury care of Linebarger. No account number, still addressed to only my last name. I called them at that point and requested a response to my inital letter. Got transferred around, finally talked to a woman named Suzanne who stated that they were just trying to find the owner of the debt. Mailed me forms to fill out to dispute debt with Treasury.
I received the forms in two weeks. Filled out forms and submitted them, keeping a copy for myself. Called the next week to follow up. They lost the first set that I mailed them, mailed new set. Called the next week to follow up. They finally recieved the dispute and stated to me that they would forward it on to Treasury and it looked like I didn’t owe anything to them. If they needed anything they would call. Wanted to know how long I had been garnished and tax returns offset. This never happened and I told them so, and they said, “Oh good. Thats good they didn’t do that already.”
- April 2010. I fill out my tax return because time is running out. I hadn’t been stalling, it just slipped my mind. Parents need money for proceedure for mom. I was supposed to get my refund in on 16th, so I let them have the money I had on hand a few days before leaving me with about 4 bucks, which was fine as I had cash in the wallet and I was going to be getting funds back in couple of days. Funds never show, call IRS, they tell me Treasury reported offsetting the return to pay department of education debt.
I call Treasury, they won’t tell me anything other than “You need to talk to the Department of Education they say you owe.” I call ED because I am an admin on their computer systems and I have access to prove that I don’t owe anything. They concur. I call Treasury back. They say that ED says I owe money. I explain to them that I just got off of the phone with ED, they don’t care they say ED says this. I call ED back. They hook me up with an ombudsman lawyer and after a few days of internal inquiry, the ombudsman contacts Treasury. Treasury tells the ombudsman that it is a Department of Transportation debt after all. The ombudsman calls me back to inform me of this and to let me know that there isn’t anything else she can do.
I call DOT. They don’t even have a 1-800 number that I can find, but I call one of their 202-377 numbers listed on their website. They have no idea how I could owe them any money period as I don’t own a trucking company or any other remotely likely situation. They cooperate and say they will provide anything I need to help me out. I call Treasury back for the last time, they won’t tell me who gets the funds, they won’t tell me who is reporting the debt, won’t take paperwork from me, won’t let me fax anything, won’t let me do anything with them. They refer me back to Linebarger. I call Linebarger, they say that they have forwarded Treasury the proof that I don’t owe the funds. They won’t do anything else. Treasury reports that since the debt has been proven valid twice they will no longer speak with me on the matter and refer me back to Linebarger. They also remind me that my wages can be garnished up to 100% of the net amount due to the age and deliquency of the debt.
I start working with Congressman Ralph Hall’s office. They open a congressional inquiry into the garnishment and another one into the debt itself.
Get an automated letter from FMS stating that my tax return was garnished for Creditor 33, no amount due, total amount, amount past due. My account number is apparently 2541 which no one understands either.
Paycheck appears to show up, I can see it being preauthorized on Credit Union of Texas’s website.
I pay my truck and motorcycle. Deposit some loose funds into my account. Go to pay my mortgage but I am in the negative with the credit union. My funds were taken at the employer by Treasury.
I call Wells Fargo to let them know that the payment made to them has bounced and wasn’t going through and to tell them of the situation. They say that the age of the mortgage (November 2009 till now) and the fact that it was already a few days late (it was due on May 1st but they don’t care if you pay it within ten days its fine) means they were going to start paperwork to get the foreclosure going. I tell them that my funds will be restored to me eventually and I can get proof of the whole thing through Congressman Ralph Hall’s office. No dice there.
The next week someone in a Cadillac Escalade parks in my drive way and starts walking around my house with a clip board. I go outside to talk to him, he says he was sent by Wells Fargo and he was an property appraisal guy. I call Wells Fargo back, they say if both payments aren’t made in time on the first of June, they were sending out the sheriff’s department to serve me with notice of foreclosure and to vacate the property.
Treasury puts a deadline on the congressional inquiry’s response as May 8th. May 8th is a Saturday. Congressman’s office points this out. They say they realize that. May 8th comes and goes, congressman’s office contacts them on the 10th for follow up. They respond that they will get back with the congressman’s office by the end of the day.
My father, brother, and I go up to office for morning meeting. They still have not responded. Congressman’s office calls once an hour.
Even if you did your tax return on April 1st, it isn’t likely that your return would have been processed, refund posted, and garnishment placed by April 16th (yes, I understand the garnishment in question ate the refund before it was even sent out- the point still stands).
By comparison, I filed my rather simple tax return on April 11th and it wasn’t until yesterday the the IRS website shows my return is in process. I am not set to get my refund direct deposited until the middle of June.
I helped several friends prepare their returns, one of which was sent in the middle of March. That friend had a somewhat complex return (new home buyer credit, etc.) and she still hasn’t received her refund either. My clients don’t really get refunds, so I can’t speak to that 
I don’t understand how Linebarger didn’t know who the debt was to. Also, what the heck kind of debt would somebody owe the DOT? I hope the congressman’s office can make some headway with this soon.
Also, if your paycheck is being garnished by a government agency, generally there is a letter sent to them, certified, mandating this garnishment. Why don’t you get your employer to give you a copy of this levy? It’ll say exactly who is involved and where your money is going. If this is a bank levy, the same rules apply. The bank will have a copy of the levy.
This is the same thing we do when our clients come in and say their paycheck is being taken by a tax agency but they don’t know who, what, where, when, or why. Go get the levy, then you’ll have all the info you need.
I think that they got the garnishment and all that started between the time when Linebarger says they took care of it and when I filed my tax return… that was from Januaryish to April. My tax return is a simple 1040A through Tax Act. When you do it on their website and submit it electronically, you can go to the IRS’s “Where’s my refund?” process on their website and it will give you the anticipated date. The 16th was mine.
HR says they have pretty much what is put on the notice that I got from Treasury. It says Treasury is the one doing the garnisher for CREDITOR 33. They were supposed to have faxed what they had to the congressman’s office, but I forgot actually to follow up with this with everything else that is going on. This is a good idea, thanks I will do that as soon as they are open tomorrow.