Consumer complaint received 2016-10-06
Product: Debt collection — Credit card
Issue: False statements or representation — Attempted to collect wrong amount
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC. (GA)

I settled credit card debt owned by Midland Funding with XXXX XXXX XXXX. Judgement states make XXXX payments to XXXX XXXX XXXX monthly. Starting XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, all my payments made through bill pay were returned to my bank account ( see attached ). Midland wouldnt acknowledge my acct, told me to call my lawyer. My lawyer had no idea of who I was to make payments to. XXXX XXXX XXXX .... no answer. XXXX XXXX XXXX had no idea why payments were being returned. I received notice that I was part of the class action lawsuit and would receive either monetary settlement or remaining debt cleared. I never heard anything else from anyone until XX/XX/XXXX. Almost a year later my wages are being garnished by XXXX XXXX for ... .. NONPAYMENT. XXXX XXXX are not listed anywhere on my court judgement document saying Im responsible to send payments to them. XXXX XXXX XXXX or Midland never notified me of who I was to send payments to. No certified mail, never served. NOTHING. When I called them they initially said that I was being garnished because I failed to make payments ( they ones that were sent back to me ) ... so they waited a year and garnished. When I asked why no one contacted me they said that they " Tried '' to contact my lawyer but my lawyer never returned their call. They admitted this was the only attempt they made. And this is on an account that was named in a class action lawsuit for illegal collection. Oh .... and although I settled the debt from XXXX to XXXX and have already paid off a large majority of that .... Im being garnished .... {$1000.00} per paycheck ... .. XXXX a month .... for the FULL XXXX. How can this happen? And Im not the only one this is happening to. I will lose my house .... everything. I was making payments and doing what I was supposed to do .... they are taking advantage of people like me. I tried diligently to find out who payments needed to be made to and to try to find out why they were returned in the first place to no avail. And now they can just walk in .... send a notice to my employer on a Friday ... garnish XXXX the next Friday ( NO TIME to fight this at all ). My lawyer has made numerous calls and they wont return her calls. I called them and this person XXXX XXXX ( At XXXX XXXX ) told me to send him my proof that I made payments and he would call me. I sent my documentation immediately and he never called me back. Ive left messages and they wont call me. How easy for someone to just stop taking payments .... return payments and just say you didnt pay .... and collect the whole XXXX instead of the XXXX i owe. This seems illegal to me. These people need to be stopped. Immediately. Im a single mother .... paying for a home, food, clothes etc with NO SUPPORT outside my income. paying for my car and my XXXX kids ... who are XXXX. It takes every dime I have to do this alone .... XXXX a month will cause me to lose my home .... I may make a good salary, but I also have other debt. And Im sure they would like their money too.