As courts have now reopened for the most part in New York and New Jersey, there has been a flurry of post judgment enforcement activity. Creditors who were sidelined by Covid are now free to resume judgment enforcement and collection efforts. They have done so vigorously although most consumers and small businesses are still reeling from the financial effects of Covid. A good majority of judgments obtained by creditors in consumer debt matters are on default. The main reason for this is poor service of process. Most consumers do not receive the lawsuit filed against them whether it is because of process servers whom do not serve the consumers but say that that they did, better known as “sewer service,” or because the consumer has moved from address to address and the creditor and or process sever has failed to provide the required effort into actually finding them.
The primary tools for these creditors to find and collect on judgments are by way of wage garnishment and bank levy. Both of these are debilitating to consumers. Wage garnishment allows a creditor to take roughly 10% of a consumer’s wages directly out of their salary while still accruing judgment interest. A bank levy allows a creditor to freeze double the amount of money in a bank account while also allowing the judgment to continue accruing interest.
Commons debt collection law firms such as Forster and Garbus, Rubin & Rothman, and Selip and Stylianou are all pursuing these options again with full force. The only way to stop and reverse these avenues of enforcement is to immediately move to vacate the judgment. This removes any wage garnishment or bank levy and allows the consumer to defend themselves on the merits of the action.