How can courts sell debts to collection agencies and still hold you responsible with warrants?

Joe B: How can courts sell debts to collection agencies and still hold you responsible with warrants?
I’ve never had tickets to deal with but I’ve heard courts can sell debts (like traffic tickets) to collection agencies like CC debt. As I understand when they sell the debt, the lose all rights to it, they can’t collect on it anymore since they sold the debt for probably pennies on the dollar to an agency.

How can courts sell the debt yet still hold you responsible with a warrant? It would seem if they sell the debt, they should no longer be able to take any action or enforce a penalty. Did the courts create special exceptions for themselves?

Answers and Views:

Answer by WRG
No, the legislative bodies made exceptions if they were needed. But there is nothing in most state laws that would stop a court from allowing the collection agency to attempt to collect the debt with out actually purchasing the debt. They can act as an agent of the court.

Answer by wg0z
the courts arent selling anything. an unpaid fine is a debt to the govt and govts pretty much do not allow anyone to stiff them for any reason whatsoever. the govt is NOT usually selling the debt when it gets an agency involved.
the collection agency has a contract with the state to act as an “attack dog”. the govt adds the cost of collection to the amount owed, because it can.

Answer by TXDiver
I would fact check this and see if this is “actually happening” anywhere in the nation. The county I am very familiar with allows the officers to act as debt collector in lieu of jail. They will tell you the bail amount and escort you to obtain a money order or cashiers check. If you can pay, you are free and the warrant is gone. I have never heard of any outside collection agency use.

Answer by timothy p
debt collectors are really good at tracking people down. They have much more time to dedicate to this than the average police department. The courts can sell the rights to collect the dollar value of a ticket or they could consign the debt to a collector.

“How can courts sell the debt yet still hold you responsible with a warrant?” If consigned, they still have the right to the debt. If you skipped court and didn’t pay the ticket then it is likely you also have a separate warrant for failure to appear.

Answer by Prorkycake
Not all collection agencies purchase debt. There are collection agencies that, as previously mentioned, act as a agent of the Court as a service. They employ an agency because they just don’t have time to do it, or the man power.

I think your reasoning is a little flawed. The warrant is not for your failure to pay the debt. The warrant is for your failure to obey the law, show up to an appointed hearing, or respond to your civic duty to take care of the ticket. You have two responsibilities. Dispute the ticket or pay the fine. When you fail to do either and blatantly spit in their face, they have the right to a)collect on the debt AND b)enforce any and all penalties available to remedy the situation to include hunting you down and making you serve jail time.

You are trying to reason that selling the debt waives the fact that you broke the law to begin with. I’m sorry, but the justice system does not work that way. You got a ticket and failed to pay the fine. They employ another agency to collect that fine since you ignored the court date. Now they issue a warrant for an outstanding ticket and will get their money/jail time/community service out of you.

There is no injustice in that; nor does there exist a reason for a special exception.