Consumer complaint received 2020-02-14
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC.
State: WI
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: I do not know
Issue: Written notification about debt
Sub-issue: Didn't receive notice of right to dispute

Complaint:
Midland Funding XXXX XXXX has been filing court actions against me for the last 10 years to garnish wages for a bill they claim to have sued me for in court to collect in XXXX County on XX/XX/XXXX. However, I never received a notice stating I was being sued or have any idea what this bill is even for or I would have shown up to contest it in XXXX. 

When I initially received the court order for garnishment, I believe it was in XXXX. I thought it was some kind of mistake and ignored it because I had never worked for the company they were trying to garnish wages from ( I believe it was a grade school in a part of the state I've never lived in and quite far from my address ) and had no idea what it was for. 

Then about a year later I received another order for garnishment, naming a company with a similar name to the company I was working for at the time with a different address so again, I ignored it. I lived at the same address from XX/XX/XXXX until XXXX of XXXX, and was working or in school the entire time. My wages were never garnished, and never received further or any other form of communication from them. 

I moved to XXXX  XXXX, WI in XX/XX/XXXX and have been living at the same address since then. In XXXX of XXXX my mom contacted me to let me know there was some important looking mail addressed to me with her address so I had her mail it to me. To my shock, it was another XXXX County Circuit Court garnishment order from Midland Funding, and this time they had the correct company and company address. 

In addition, the initial amount owed in the judgement was approximately {$1800.00}, and they have been charging me " unpaid post judgement interest '' since then totaling {$2100.00}, which is more than the initial judgement itself. Then they tacked on another {$120.00} for what they called " estimated costs of garnishment '' for a grand total of {$4100.00}. They started garnishing my wages on XX/XX/XXXX and over three months received {$2500.00}, then they stopped garnishing my wages after XX/XX/XXXX so I thought it was done and they didn't charge me that much interest. 

In XXXX I receive another XXXX County Circuit Court order for garnishment, again mailed to my mother 's address, claiming I still owe them an unpaid balance of {$1000.00}, interest charges totaling {$490.00}, another charge for estimated costs of garnishment of {$120.00} for a grand total of {$1700.00}. Which means they are continuing to charge me interest, and these extra fees, which I believe is against Wisconsin law. 

I received yet another court order from XXXX County Court in XXXX of XXXX from Midland Funding, with the unpaid balance now at {$1200.00}, unpaid interest totaling {$500.00}, estimated costs {$120.00} for a grand total of {$1800.00}. How does it go up by {$51.00} between XXXX and XXXX, then go up by {$140.00} between XXXX and XXXX? They are just throwing whatever amount they want on top of what I still owe them, and what happens in 3 months if it's not all paid? The only reason I was able to pay $ 2500+ was due to the amount of overtime I was working at the time which is no longer available.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation