Judgement - A civil judgement is filed against you usually by collection agencies. In theory they take you to court to sue you for the debt. In practice the collection agency often send the summons to the wrong address purposefully so people do not go to court and the agency therefore wins by default. The judge can award that a person’s employer garnishes his wages to pay the debt. Note that wages cannot be garnished until a judge says so. A judgement can greatly hurt your credit and your finances (as you also have to pay legal fees) so debt settlement out of court is much better.