Can Your Social Security Benefits Be Seized To Pay Your Credit Card Debt?

If you are on Social  Security and have credit card debt that you are unable to pay, can the credit card company garnish your monthly Social Security benefits?

As long as the account where your Social Security benefits are deposited contain only your Social Security funds, then those funds can not be seized...unless it is to pay a government debt that you owe such as income taxes, child support or alimony. If you have other funds in the account with your Social Security benefits, you will probably want to open separate accounts to protect your Social Security benefits from being garnished.

Your credit card debt is considered unsecured debt and the credit card company can't take your Social Security benefits, you still have options to pay what you owe and keep your credit history from getting any worse.

A new joint effort with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) and the Association of Independent Consumer Credit counseling Agencies (AICCCA) created a program with issuers of credit cards that allows many more people to repay their debts in a debt management Program (DMP).

The program known as the "Call to Action" program gives credit counselors additional options to qualify customers with lower levels for repayment plans to pay what they owe on their credit card balances.

If you are needing to find a job, you need to create a reasonable spending plan that allows you to live on your Social Security benefits. You will have to adjust your spending so that you don't go into debt each month.

Remember, it is not legal for a collection agency to threaten you to pay your credit card debt by claiming they will take your Social Security checks. If this does happen, you can sue the creditor for violating the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act.

If you decide to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy because of your credit card debt, your Social Security checks will be classified as part of your income when a repayment plan is produced. If this occurs, you may be required to use some of your income from Social Security to pay your credit card debt.