How a biz reporter sued Consumers Digest and won

Debra Borchardt writes about how she sued Consumers Digest for nonpayment for an article she wrote for them and eventually was paid.

Borchardt writes, “I won the judgment and notified him and still, I heard nothing. The court gives you a sheet with your options if the other party doesn’t pay. My option was a ‘Garnishment of Non-Wage Summons.’  This means I can freeze the money that they owe me in their bank account. I warned Randy again that I planned to do this and would he want to pay me now because this new court filing would just make the money he owed me go even higher. Silence. I filed that document and after a few tries got it right and it was accepted. Since I wasn’t a lawyer, I made quite a few mistakes along the way even though I asked numerous questions and talked to the law library at the courthouse several times. I often got bad information.

“Next, I had to send the Garnishment documents to Chase, who froze the money and they sent me a document back stating that they had done this. Then I had to send that document to the judge and file a ‘Turn Over Order’ with the judge. He would then tell the bank to turn over the money to me. Once I got the Turn Over Order signed by the judge, I had to send that to Chase who finally sent me a cashiers check for now $3,900. The original $3500 + court costs. I never got reimbursed for my travel or all the priority mail costs. I figured it was still less than what I would have spent on a lawyer. It took me several months and would have gone quicker had I known what I was doing. But ultimately I prevailed.

“Consumers Digest did this to several other reporters during 2017. They continued to sign contracts knowing they didn’t have the money to pay them. The editors insisted they didn’t know about the money problems, but of course, they are lying just like Randy Weber.”

Read more here.