In Alberta, legislation governing Payday Loans and their respective Lenders is regulated under the Fair Trading Act, RSA, 2000, Chapter F-2 and Payday Loans Regulation 157/2009 and Cost of Credit Disclosure Regulation 198/1999.

Wage assignments in Alberta are illegal pursuant to Section 53 of the Fair Trading Act.

53(1) Any assignment by a lender of all or any part of the person's wages to secure the payment of an existing or future indebtedness

(a) is against public policy and void if it is made in favour of a lender.

(b) is unenforceable by a lender if it is originally made in favour of a person other than a lender and is later acquired by a lender.

53(2) A lender or an officer, director, employee or agent of a lender shall not attempt to induce a person to assign wages in favour of the lender in contravention of subsection (1) or to enforce what purports to be an assignment of wages in favour of or acquired by the lender.

There are only 2 situations in which a wage assignment or garnishment can be made WITHOUT first obtaining a court order. They are
1. A wage assignment issued by a Credit Union and signed by the member ( borrower ) at the time the loan was made. This is provided for in the various provincial/territorial Acts governing Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires.

2. Outstanding and unpaid taxes owing to the Canada Revenue Agency.

In all other cases, a lender ( creditor ) must first obtain a judgment or court order BEFORE a garnishment can be issued by the court. In order to obtain a judgment, a creditor must issue a Statement ( Notice ) of Claim and serve it on the debtor. The debtor then has a set time period in which to respond ( File a Statement { Notice } of Defence ). The time periods will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Here is my recommended course of action. Contact your Payroll Administrator at your employer and request a copy of the document that was used to garnish your wages. If it appears to be a Wage Assignment issued by the Payday Lender, then, this is illegal pursuant to Section 53 of the Fair Trading Act. Request your employer to reimburse you for the garnished amount. If the employer refuses, inform your employer that you will be seeking legal assistance immediately which may result in the filing of a lawsuit.

If on the other hand, the document is a Garnishment of Wages ( Court Order ) issued by the court, then your employer is obligated to comply with this court order. As I stated previously, in order for the Payday Lender to obtain a court order, they first must issue to you a Statement ( Notice ) of Claim. If you were served with this Notice but did not file a Statement ( Notice ) of Defence within the stated time limit, then the Payday Lender would have obtained a Default Judgment from which they would have requested a Garnishment of Wages.

If you believe that you were not served with a Statement ( Notice ) of Claim, then you can file a Motion to the court requesting the judge to stay ( temporarily set aside ) the judgment until you are properly served with a Statement ( Notice ) of Claim. The garnished funds withheld by your employer and paid into the court will be held by the court until this matter is resolved. The funds will NOT be paid to the Payday Lender or released to you pending the resolution of this matter.

Keep me informed as to the results of your findings. You can either post your findings on this Forum or send me a Private Message. If you have any further concerns, don't hesitate to post them here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Educating one Consumer at a time

I need help. I had a pay day loan. I couldn't pay it back vie had some medical problems, which have lead to work being decreased . I'm a nurse ( casual) so if I'm sick I don't get paid.

Anyway today we got paid . There is a $546 garnishment from my wages . How can a payday loan place take your money. I've never been notified of a garnishment action.

How can I stop it so I can at least pay my rent and then offer to pay them back

Can I write a letter to revoke the wage assignment and will my employer have to comply. What happens if they went to court and did not nitrify me of the wage garnishment . Do I have any recourse?

I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with agent Kathy Crystal.

I called into Cash Money looking to clear my balance, and I was informed it had been sent away to another agency.

I got ahold of DCA, who explained that I could start making payments through western union. Yes, I called called DCA first...

So, I made my first payment and called back asking for confirmation the payment was receieved.
Kathy Crystal said DCA would send out a new "balance letter".

A week or so passed, and I had receieved nothing at all.
Kathy Crystal called again on the day I had committed to making another payment, and when I inquired about this confirmation/balance letter, she interrupted me, raising her voice, and demanding I make payment immediately because I said I was going to.
Well, Kathy had agreed to send confirmation and didn't...
After arguing about this, I finally receieved the very least DCA could do, which was a skimpy little email with 4 lines showing my balance and last payment received. Because of the email, I went and made another $600 payment, afterwards I called in twice to try to receive a confirmation, and could not get through.

Kathy called again on the next date I had agreed to make the next payment, and I explained that I haven't received any kind of confirmation that the last $600 payment was receieved.
She was rude and insisted that DCA does not send this kind of confirmation after every payment, because DCA has too much to do.

I told her that I can't send more money, when I haven't even receieved any legal confirmation that the last payment was receieved. She responded with, "well its your credit rating! your credit will sit here and gain more and more interest then!"

So you have an employee who is preventing me from paying, simply because she is not willing to send a confirmation letter acknowledging the last payment was received.

Initially I was happy and motivated to try to pay off my debt, but my experience with Kathy has upset me. I feel like she has attempted to bully me and now I feel like avoiding the entire situation.

I even cashed out my RRSP to pay off my debt with DCA, and all I asked was that I received confirmation DCA received my RRSP!

DCA is the only company I've ever heard of, that is not happy to send a confirmation and new balance letter after you pay them money!

If you're dealing with Pay Day lenders, my company will provide a free consultation on your situation and may be able to help you walk away from the debt completely, depending on which one(s) you borrowed from.

Give me a call at 1-866-873-6222 or email me at info@occa.ca Just mention you heard about OCCA on Canadian Money Advisor

OCCA.CA

Actually, got some help from these guys. I've been financially strapped for years and my credit ratings were really taken a beating as of late. So I've been taken advances on my pay through various sources and trying to keep up. Anyway, the management at DCA showed some really class with me and shared some tips on how to improve my credit rating. This information proved to be extremely beneficial to me and now I am well on my way to getting things cleared......for now. They even gave a reasonable arrangement to pay off my debts they had on file for me. You just never know when things will get bad again but for now the help was huge for me.

Chuck

Hey Markey, I used to deal with those guys and paid them my hydro and a credit card debt last year. Just found out last week that I also have 2 payday loan debts that they are trying to collect. I appreciate if you could tell me which payday loan you were collecting for at Debt Control Agency so I will be able to ask you few questions. Thanks a lot.

Hey every body used to work for these guys and I can tell you they take a lot of shortcuts around the law at this place. Let me start by outlining there business structure at the eglinton office, president is a man name mohsen he has two floor managers one is named delia she deals with money mart accounts and any odd business they are able to snatch up ( other little payday loan business or any one willing to pay to contract out debt collection services), second name to know is patrick he is the cash money payday loan manager, now it is very important to know that they do not buy these debts however they do get them contracted out on a percentage basis for example if the debt is 200$ they might get a 40% comission the other 60% is then given to the originally debtee,(money mart), they also have to answer to the ministry of consumer affairs in ontario every province its own government department they must answer to and this is one of their biggest worries, they hate offiacial complaints and too many of them can get there licencing taken from them, another good recourse is to call the money mart directly and complain not about your debt but about their rudeness (and they will be rude to trust me), but more then that let them know that you are aware of your rights, another gret way to get them off your back is to write a formally letter asking for correspondance through the mail only by writting this letter they will be forced to never phone you again. Using the right verbage with these guys will get them off your back, however it will not make your debt go away. Paying money mart or cash money directly still makes debt control agency money they still get the commission. However if you negotiate with the money mart you may be able to get a lower settlement. Debt collection agency will give you only 25% off the debt maximum where as the actual debtee (money mart) will sometimes go lower, this brings me to there collection strategy it involves baseless threats, the first contact they make with you they will demand that you pay them the entire debt up front othereise they will "proceed" or forward the motion" these are all terms that mean nothing, in fact right now in canada it is not possible for pay day loan places or there collection agencies to sue you over these debts and they are not allowed to threaten it either., If any one mentions court to you or is alluding to any lawsuit or legal action of any kind they could be sued (seriously). Even if you didnt record the phoner mark the time and date of call as they have to record all calls and would be forced to retrieve this call when an official complain is made to the ministry. This is important as they have very inexperienced reps working for them. These new or inexperienced reps will mess up and say things they are not legaly allowed to say ( any legal action, wage garneshment, threats to inform third parties, or organizations are illegal) and will leave themselves liable as well as the company. Most of the reps there dont last more then 2 months due to the high stress nature of the job, and the low collection rates these type of debts have. Another thing to watch out for is there are not licenced for all provincves, ontario and alberta were the only provinces i was licensed for when i worked there (within the last year). Meaning all of the calls to any other proviince would be illegal. they do this knowingly as they are to cheap to provide licencing for all provinces. I could go on and on. So if you have any questions what so ever about this compnay feel free to post it here and ill be sure to answer it.

What is up with this Slava guy, he is just an ass, I have spoken to him calmly and he just gets angree and yells and hangs up on me demanding his money now as if this is personal between me and him. He says his company doesnt deal in costomer service. Is he allowed to speak to me the way he does, and what can i do about it. He refuses to transfer me to anyone else. I wont pay them until i get a little respect, i only owe I think 200 dollars.

hey pashmina,
Yes.. of course.. collection agents need to be licensed in each province ... otherwise the phone call is illegal. You should complain about them to the consumer protection.

If a collection agent isn't licensed, how do you know who they really are? They could be con artists looking to make a quick buck over the phone.

i heard that debt control agency doesn't provide lisences for all provinces to its employees. my collector told me she was only lisenced for ontario. do you need to be lisenced in all provinces to collect from all provinces?