Has anyone dealt with the "collection agency" Rubin and Rothman? I have sent them letters trying to settle the debt that is owed, but I don't receive any responses back from them. They did get a judgement awarded to them by default. I want to settle this debt, remove the judgment, and have all negative TL removed from my CR. I am afraid that one day money will automatically be taken out of my bank account. BTW - I live in NY.
Your fears are well grounded. Anybody who has a judgment should immediately get their money out of any and all bank accounts in their state. That should be done even before the judgment is granted. There are plenty of online banks for judgment debtors to use to keep their money safe from garnishment. The old hometown bank account should be kept open by making sure that there is always $5 or $10 in the hometown bank for them to grab. An even better strategy is to use an anonymous corporation and get a tax number for it. If you have judgments then it is a wise idea to get other people in as board members as well. Just because others are board members don't mean they have any access to corporate records or bank accounts but they do provide a safety net against getting the corporate veil pierced. Your corporation can do many things to help protect your assets. It can also get judgments against you and can garnish your wages. Everybody knows you can't sue yourself but your corporation can sue you for a huge amount of money and since you would not fight against yourself it would get a default judgment for more money than you would ever be able to pay off. Your employer would send 25% of your wages to the court who would then send your corporation a check each month. Your corporation would buy U.S. Postal money orders each month which you can cash at any post office. Or you can use the garnishment money to do any number of things that would make you even more money. Of course, your corporation will have operating expenses which are tax deductible. It would have to maintain an office which would take up a certain percentage of your home's square footage which it rents from you. Tax deductible. It has to own one or more computers. Tax deductible. It is going to take electricity to run it's computer(s) and lighting and air conditioning. Tax deductible. It is going to need heat in winter. Tax deductible. It will need transportation. Tax deductible. Your corporation can loan you money on your vehicle(s) so they can't be grabbed by creditors. Your corporation can even rent all your home furnishings to you so they can't be hauled off and sold. And of course you can also release the judgment or the liens at any time you choose to do so. Your corporation can lose money for up to 5 years before you have to shut it down and start another corporation. Of course, you have to be earning enough money to make that practical. It won't work if you only make minimum wage or barely above that because it would cost more than a creditor's garnishment would take away from you. Getting the judgment in place isn't cheap either. You have to pay a lawyer to do it for you and finding one that will do it for less than maybe $700 or so is almost impossible. Then you have the court costs. That can run another $500 by the time you get yourself served. Getting a garnishment in place can easily run over $1200. All expenses of getting the job done will cost about $3,000 so if you owe less than that to creditors it simply isn't worth doing. In otherwords, it isn't cheap but it can be well worth it if you earn enough money.
