How big is the amount before the bank can sue a creditor? I hope the answers have legal basis. Thank you.

You better believe it madam, and the banks will chase you to your grave. After that, they will MAKE your children pay your dues.

they will repossess your belongings, you will have to pay the bills through a lawyer & you will be blacklisted as a bad payer in which case you will never get credit from another lender again

Not sure if jail is available, but they can get hit on their credit report ("FICO score" - Fair, Isaac, and CO.), defaulting can make it harder for them to get loans such as mortgages, car loans, and credit cards in the future.

There is no such thing as a debtors prison anymore. You cannot go to jail for not paying back credit cards. You cant even have your things repossesed if the credit was unsecured.
The only thing a credit card company can do is sue you. They will get a judgement against you and if you do not repay it in a timely manner they can request your wages or bank accounts be garnished. At that point a judge will look at your living expenses and decide if and how much to garnish your wages.
It costs a lot of money for a credit card company to go to court and do this so they are probably not going to bother going after you unless you are thousand and thousands of dollars in debt. Even if they go to court and get a judgement against you, unless its probably at least over 5-10 thous dollars they wouldnt bother trying to recoup the money legally.

You may go to jail if you attempt to hide money or refuse to go along with court orders or summons in response to any lawsuits against you by the credit card companies.

Credit card companies know that they are going to lose money from people that dont pay it back. It is part of their costs of doing business. What a credit card company usually does if the amount isnt that much is sell your debt to a collection agency for pennies on the dollar. If you are majorly in debt with a credit card company my best suggestion is to call them and try to figure out a way to pay it off. If you show good faith in trying to pay it off or explain that you just cant do it a lot of times they will suspend the interest or lower it, or give you the option to settle the debt for a smaller amount. All they want is to get some of their money back and they know if you havent been paying for a while it is better to make some sort of deal with you and get some money back then have it go to collections and get really no money back.


There are very specific laws on how debt collectors can approach you or contact you concerning debt. If they threaten legal action when they really have no intention of doing any then they can be in trouble. They also cant tell you that you will be arrested or threaten you like that in any way. You can actually sue them for doing things like this. When dealing with these people I would record your conversations or at least document emails. There are also statute of limitations that differ in each state but basically if they havent come after you for the money after so many years they cant legally get that money from you unless you acknowledge the debt and agree to pay it back, so careful what you say and check out the laws in your state regarding that. But if you owe the debt the honest thing is to try to find a way to pay it back.


Anyone here telling you that you can go to jail over this in the US is completely wrong. You cannot go to jail for not paying back an unsecured debt. You can only go to jail if you mess around with the legal system if the credit card companies choose to use the legal system or avoid court ordered appearances or judgements in regards to hiding money or trying to block garnishments.