Can my Federal SSI payments be garnished?

[AMY_JO]

It seems that I have an outstanding GSL from 1987 or 1988 that I was unaware of until I got a call from a collection agency last night. I was told that they could and would guarnish my Federal SSI payments by as much as 25%. Around 1990 I was found to be disabled and around 1992 I was placed on SSI diability. This is my only income. I told them unfortunatly I may have to file for bankrupcy because I only get $664.00 per month to live on for me and my son I dont know how I could make payments to pay this back. I was informed at this point that bankrupsy would not make a difference because GSL's are not covered under any bankrupcy claims. My question is can they guarnish my SSI income and will bankrupcy cover the GSL if i would have to file for it?

 

[army judge]

It seems that I have an outstanding GSL from 1987 or 1988 that I was unaware of until I got a call from a collection agency last night. I was told that they could and would guarnish my Federal SSI payments by as much as 25%. Around 1990 I was found to be disabled and around 1992 I was placed on SSI diability. This is my only income. I told them unfortunatly I may have to file for bankrupcy because I only get $664.00 per month to live on for me and my son I dont know how I could make payments to pay this back. I was informed at this point that bankrupsy would not make a difference because GSL's are not covered under any bankrupcy claims. My question is can they guarnish my SSI income and will bankrupcy cover the GSL if i would have to file for it?

Never, ever, ever, ever speak with debt collectors.

They are pathological liars.

They will tell you anything to "con" money out of you!

In some rare cases Social security, disability benefits, pensions are subject to levy.

Rest assured that your SSI benefits are safe from ALL levy or attachment.

The Social Security Administration will assist you, if these creeps bother you.

I would waste NO time in contacting SS about these clowns harassing and threatening you!

STOP talking to or communicating with debt collectors!

NOTE: Supplemental Security Income payments cannot be levied or garnished.

Section 207 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 407) protects Social Security benefits from assignment, levy, or garnishment. However, the law provides five exceptions:

* Section 459 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 659) allows Social Security benefits to be garnished to enforce child support and/or alimony obligations;
* Section 6334 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 6334 (c)) allows benefits to be levied to collect unpaid Federal taxes;
* Section 3402 (P) of the Internal Revenue Code allows beneficiaries to elect to have a percentage of their benefits withheld and paid to the Internal Revenue Service to satisfy their Federal income tax liability for the current year;
* The Debt Collection Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-134) allows benefits to be withheld and paid to another Federal agency to pay a non-tax debt the beneficiary owes to that agency: and
* The Tax Payer Relief Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-34) authorizes the Internal Revenue Service to collect overdue federal tax debts of beneficiaries by levying up to 15 percent of each monthly payment until the debt is paid.

The Social Security Administration's responsibility for protecting benefits against legal process and assignment usually ends when the beneficiary is paid. However, once paid, benefits continue to be protected under section 207 of the Act as long as they are identifiable as Social Security benefits using normal banking practices. For example, only social security benefits are deposited into a particular bank account.

If a creditor tries to garnish your social security check, inform them that unless one of the five exceptions apply, your benefits can not be garnished. You also may want to provide this same information to your financial institution and seek legal assistance if you believe it is needed.




http://www.ssa.gov/deposit/DDFAQ898.htm

 

[KCGirl]

Never, ever, ever, ever speak with debt collectors.

They are pathological liars.

They will tell you anything to "con" money out of you!

In some rare cases Social security, disability benefits, pensions are subject to levy.

Rest assured that your SSI benefits are safe from ALL levy or attachment.

The Social Security Administration will assist you, if these creeps bother you.

I would waste NO time in contacting SS about these clowns harassing and threatening you!

STOP talking to or communicating with debt collectors!

I just wanted commend you and to say that your response on the issue of debts/debt collectors is most unusual coming from someone who is not the debtor.

Almost all the responses I see to similar questions are more along the lines of "stop being a deadbeat and pay your bills" which is then followed with a long sermon about how debtors are the scourge of the earth and debt collectors are blessed souls just trying to survive in a cold cruel world.

The whole point of these kinds of responses is to discount the possibility the debt may not be valid or discharged in bankruptcy for example, and instead advance straight ahead to one more along the lines of a low-life/debtor bashing scenario.

What I mean is if you are a "good and upstanding" citizen who always pays your debts there is very little sympathy or acknowledgment that there may be "circumstances" involved. They prefer to skip right past to the part where the debtor is a low-life no matter what.

I agree with you, debt collectors are (at least imo) shady characters that I classify along with carnival hucksters and snake oil salesmen. In their world nothing is too low, they wouldn't care if you are a struggling mother on her deathbed with 12 kids needing food to eat, they would take your last dime and laugh about it. They would be more likely to see a bottle of milk you are going to give your starving infant as an asset to be confiscated in order that you "settle up".

Who needs it? I would speak to them when they first sent me a claim saying pay up or else I'm taking you to court but when I did it would be to demand they send you validation of the debt because 99.99 percent of them aren't going to be able to and that cuts them off at the pass.

Once they get you in court, its a whole other ball of wax, in my experience. The judges I've seen could care less if the debt collector has any proof as to owning the debt or right to collect and at the first chance will enter a judgment against you. I don't know why, I'm just saying thats what I see happen and thats why its better to try to make them prove it out of court. You'd think it would be the other way around, that once you get in court the "wheels of justice" will protect you but imo that's not the way it usually goes. I've read about some judges who do care but they are the exception not the rule imo.

I'm confused though by this:

In some rare cases Social security, disability benefits, pensions are subject to levy.

Rest assured that your SSI benefits are safe from ALL levy or attachment.

The Social Security Administration will assist you, if these creeps bother you.

Are you saying that SSI is exempted in all cases as opposed to Social Security Disability or Social Security in general????

Could you enlighten me please?

 

[army judge]

I just wanted commend you and to say that your response on the issue of debts/debt collectors is most unusual coming from someone who is not the debtor.

Almost all the responses I see to similar questions are more along the lines of "stop being a deadbeat and pay your bills" which is then followed with a long sermon about how debtors are the scourge of the earth and debt collectors are blessed souls just trying to survive in a cold cruel world.

The whole point of these kinds of responses is to discount the possibility the debt may not be valid or discharged in bankruptcy for example, and instead advance straight ahead to one more along the lines of a low-life/debtor bashing scenario.

What I mean is if you are a "good and upstanding" citizen who always pays your debts there is very little sympathy or acknowledgment that there may be "circumstances" involved. They prefer to skip right past to the part where the debtor is a low-life no matter what.

I agree with you, debt collectors are (at least imo) shady characters that I classify along with carnival hucksters and snake oil salesmen. In their world nothing is too low, they wouldn't care if you are a struggling mother on her deathbed with 12 kids needing food to eat, they would take your last dime and laugh about it. They would be more likely to see a bottle of milk you are going to give your starving infant as an asset to be confiscated in order that you "settle up".

Who needs it? I would speak to them when they first sent me a claim saying pay up or else I'm taking you to court but when I did it would be to demand they send you validation of the debt because 99.99 percent of them aren't going to be able to and that cuts them off at the pass.

Once they get you in court, its a whole other ball of wax, in my experience. The judges I've seen could care less if the debt collector has any proof as to owning the debt or right to collect and at the first chance will enter a judgment against you. I don't know why, I'm just saying thats what I see happen and thats why its better to try to make them prove it out of court. You'd think it would be the other way around, that once you get in court the "wheels of justice" will protect you but imo that's not so the way it usually goes. I've read about some judges who do care but they are the exception not the rule imo.

This is simple.
The debt may have been owed at one time.
But, the debt was NEVER owed to a debt collector.
Those vermin just purchase old paper.
The original creditor has long ago written off the debt.
The original creditor received tax advantages for writing the debt off.

The original creditor then sells (in some cases) old paper to the scavengers.
The scum sucking scavengers buy that old paper for 2 (or often less) cents on the dollar.
The debt collectors then slither over to the innocent debtor, and harass them for the original balance.

Now, if that balance had originally been $100, the debt collector holds a paper they bought for $2.00 (or less).
They don't have contracts or anything other than a balance sheet.
If they can get you to pay $50 to settle the debt, they walk away with a $48 profit.

A dirty little game, isn't it?
That's why you never talk to them.
First of all, you owe them no explanation.
Second of all, you don't owe them.
You never owed them.
You owed the guy who sold them the paper.
But, that guy has long ago written off the debt.

I've won plenty of these kinds of lawsuits.
They are no brainers.
I do them for amusement.
I do them to help my friends and family.

You can't lose these suits, if you know what you're doing.
But, people have no more business (or ability) being their own lawyers, than they do trying to do open heart surgery on themselves.

 

[KCGirl]

This is simple.
The debt may have been owed at one time.
But, the debt was NEVER owed to a debt collector.
Those vermin just purchase old paper.
The original creditor has long ago written off the debt.
The original creditor received tax advantages for writing the debt off.

The original creditor then sells (in some cases) old paper to the scavengers.
The scum sucking scavengers buy that old paper for 2 (or often less) cents on the dollar.
The debt collectors then slither over to the innocent debtor, and harass them for the original balance.

Now, if that balance had originally been $100, the debt collector holds a paper they bought for $2.00 (or less).
They don't have contracts or anything other than a balance sheet.
If they can get you to pay $50 to settle the debt, they walk away with a $48 profit.

A dirty little game, isn't it?
That's why you never talk to them.
First of all, you owe them no explanation.
Second of all, you don't owe them.
You never owed them.
You owed the guy who sold them the paper.
But, that guy has long ago written off the debt.

I've won plenty of these kinds of lawsuits.
They are no brainers.
I do them for amusement.
I do them to help my friends and family.

You can't lose these suits, if you know what you're doing.
But, people have no more business (or ability) being their own lawyers, than they do trying to do open heart surgery on themselves.

I agree 100 percent with what you are saying, from start to finish. Bearing in mind that the original debtor has written it off and probably gotten some sort of tax credit for bad debt? it seems wrong to me that the debt can be sold for the full amount even though the amount of the loss the original debt-holder suffered was not the full amount. So why should they be able to sell the full debt when they are no longer on the hook for the full amount?

And no, they don't have any damn proof at all. The most they come up with is some worthless affidavit signed by someone who hasn't a clue about the realities of the debt, they are hired to sign these affidavits en masse and thats what their job consists of. They aren't taught how to figure out anything, they are taught to PROBABLY even prepare these affidavits, a fill in the blank thing and then sign saying they know all about it. Never mind they barely finished high school, they KNOW.

You would think it would be hard to lose if you show up and do the right thing. I had a two collection cases both handled by Kramer and Frank Scum Suckers "at Law" and for the first one between being really sick physically and not knowing what to do and being overwhelmed, I didn't go to court and they got a default judgment against me for something like $800. The second time around I was in better health and made up my mind to go to court and play the game. Which I did, showing up each time only to be put off/continued because plaintiff wasn't ready. Then due to unusual circumstances not knowing about the 3rd hearing I was a no-show and the judge and the scum-sucker at law moved in like the vultures they are (suddenly being ready it seems) and I got another default judgment this time for $2800.

My faith in the courts is diminshed is all I can say.

In a perfect world I would have had an attorney but being SOL and SOM(money) I had none. Nevertheless it was still wrong what happened because I came fully prepared to see what their proof was and it was not forthcoming until I was a no-show at which time they convenient now had "proof" the aforesaid meaningless sham of an affiidavit very similar to the ones in the Mortgage/Foreclosure fiasco, robo-signers signing stuff they have zero knowledge of, signing away someone's home based on nothing.

The problem is that people give the benefit of the doubt to LARGE BANKS and Financial Institutions. The larger you are the more credibility you have. And so if there is a dispute between big guy and little guy, the big guy holds the trump card.

Case in point, Bank of America foreclosed on a man's home and he didn't even have a mortgage but because they were the big guy they were taken at their word and a man's home was taken from him. Bank of America, in their greed, had the facts wrong, wrong name, wrong address.

Have not heard but I hope they paid through the nose for that one but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[KCGirl]

What the scum-sucking slimeballs count on is that the debtor won't even show. Why not? Lots of reasons, maybe he can't afford an attorney and he is intimidated and unsure what to do. That plus the fact that in most cases the cases targeted are for lower-income less educated people who are easily intimidated. They have jobs that may be hanging by a thread in today's economy and if they miss a day of work they might lose their job over it but at the very least they take off without pay. So if they do take off work and lose an afternoon's salary, they then are forced to realize that they had two minutes tops in front of the judge and plaintiff says "not ready" and judge says "continued" so the next month its the same song and dance. The guy is left with two afternoons off with no pay, his employer is ticked at him for not showing. I saw some figures that its about 98 percent of the people sued don't show and get a default judgment against them. I saw a report from New York that said these firms go after the people least able to fight the claim because they don't have lawyers and they are from a low-income struggling area with lower than average education. They don't go after people who can put up a fair fight, they want the ones who will give up without a fight.

So lots of them don't show. And these slimey creeps get 100% of the debt, say $1,000 for a debt they paid $10 for with NO PROOF, NOTHING, not one signature, not one contract, not one charge slip, ZIP, ZIPPO, nothing. IMO they shouldn't be allowed to clog up the court system with their slimey cases without showing something. I THINK what they are doing is using the court to be their enforcer, their strong-arm guy, the taxpayer is on the hook for basically collecting the debts these low-lifes have invested virtually nothing in. The petition is on their computer, somebody types in the name, address, and amount and they get a process server sent out and so with little work they are off to the races. Any filing fees or whatever for the case is added onto the judgment as is the attorney fees involved so for $10 for get $1,000 in return, quite a racket if you ask me.

I've seen people who have been served with a summons and petition who are convinced that because the collection agency says so they are as good as cooked goose. They are scared they might end up in jail and so they want to know if they should contact the scum-sucker law firm and try to make a deal because they are scared and haven't got a clue.

Basically this law-firm, debt collector knocked on their door one night and said "you owe me $1,000, pay up". That's the same thing, some lowlife walking down the street needs money and he sees your house and figures your good for it so he sends a process server over to say "I want your money". You can't believe the number of people who are scared to death and if they get half this debt knocked off IF they get a reduction then they pay up without bill collector ever setting foot in court, showing one piece of evidence. It's a bully game that ought to be illegal.

What you think happens when their paycheck is garnished? Now they can't pay the rent so they go to a payday loan place and from there on out its all over. Once you get on the hook with those loan sharks your DOA. Final irony is in many cases the loan shark payday loans are owned by GUESS WHO the same people that bought the debts in the first place. Now we're ready for Round 2 they got you down and they won't let up for nothing. Predatory nasty no-morality slime.

The public needs to be educated too. Because I can't tell you how many people I've seen that say the reason the government had to do the bank bailouts was because of these people who didn't pay their debts to the 3rd party scum-sucker.

The people really responsible for the bailouts being necessary were high rollers who rolled the dice one too many times and when they got caught with their pants down Uncle Sam stepped up to save them because they were too big to be allowed to go under.

The financial collapse did not occur because the little people couldn't pay their loans. Those loans are chump change compared to the stakes in those high roller games. And those same high rollers, imo, are all lined up ready to do it again, they haven't changed their ways. Thats why I get frustrated when I see regular people who are so blind to whats going on and rather than blame the people responsible the small potatoes guy gets stuck with that debt too.



https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Let the FTC know what the 3rd party debt industry is up to lately

 

[AMY_JO]

The idiots that called me said that my GSL (guarenteed student loan) is a Federal student loan. how can I find out if this is true? If I am forced to file bankrupcy will this be covered under the bankrupcy?

 

[mightymoose]

It sounds like the statute of limitations has long since passed on this loan. If they go to court you can likely defeat them with that argument. If you fail to defend yourself in court then they could obtain a judgment.

 

[army judge]

The idiots that called me said that my GSL (guarenteed student loan) is a Federal student loan. how can I find out if this is true? If I am forced to file bankrupcy will this be covered under the bankrupcy?

Your SSI benefits can not be garnisheed or levied against. They are protected by federal law.

 

[KCGirl]

Your SSI benefits can not be garnisheed or levied against. They are protected by federal law.

What is the procedure on this? I can see where an over-zealous and greedy debt collector might get ahead of themselves unless there are restrictions and procedures.

If a creditor discovers your bank account is he then free to garnish immediately or is there some verification process that has to be followed such as the source of funds.

Did I understand you to say earlier that once funds such as SSI are deposited into an account where there are other funds as well which did not come from an exempt category such as a job, sale of an item, or so forth, that the SSI is not safe anymore? Does it need to be in an account with no other funds being added?

Has a creditor ever seized funds that they later had to return and how would one accomplish that if you found that exempt funds were garnished? Does the bank get it back, social security or is it up to the poor unfortunate to get it back?

 

[army judge]

Social security funds, especially SSI benefits, are free from seizure, garnishment, or levy. You must assert the right. If it is after the fact, the funds seized must be returned.

You must initiate the action/protest.