Can a company Garnish a worker's wages without informing that worker?

[diabeticman]

A friend of mine who also works the night shift calls me on his break pissed off. He has been pissed off to begin with because for the past month his paycheck has been smaller than usual. His paycheck is directly deposited so he did try to speak to his manager asking why his pay changed so much.

The manager ignored his calls and request to talk about his pay. His pay stub normally placed in his company "mailbox" suddenly never showed up and no matter how much my friend quested his pay stub it wasn't left for him.

Well, on his break he calls me and tells me his wages are being Garnish and he has no idea who or why is garnishing it. He is deeply concern that his wages are being Garnished by mistake because his older brother had stolen his identity about 10 years ago.

My friend is going to wait until the manager comes in to speak about this issue.

Didn't the company needed to inform my friend this was happening before it started?

My friend has never received anything from a collection company or a lawyer's office.

How does my friend find out who is Garnishing the wages and why?

[Orrex]

1. In short, yes

When my employer started garnishing my wages for defaulted student loan payments, they didn't give me any warning at all. Just one day, poof! A big chunk of my check was gone. Additionally, when I got to the point when garnishment could cease, it was up to me to document this to my employer; the collecting firm didn't proactively notify them and would have been happy to continue garnishing my pay until the full debt was cured.

It seems to me incredibly unlikely that your friend has truly had no advance notice. Unless he has made himself hard to find, it is almost certain that either his lender or hthe collection agency has made multiple attempts to reach him. I'm sure that he insists that no one contacted him beforehand, but he's probably incorrect.