Rights of senior citizens over credit card debt

[sukumara]

Can a senior citizen who experience hardships relating to financial instability and a series of health problems be sued by a debt collection agency for unpaid credit card debt?

[justbroke]

Yes. The real question is can the creditor or debt collector actually collect anything? This is what we call "collection-proof". Things like income from social security and, depending on your state, certain retirement benefits, may be exempt and protected from collection activity. Even with SSA benefits and/or retirement benefits being exempt, this may not stop a collector from seeking a judgment and then getting an order allowing them to levy your bank account!

Always make sure SSA income is in a separate account where the funds are not co-mingled. Figure out what your exposure is in the long run. While you may be collection-proof, what's the impact if they did actually levy your bank one day? Is bankruptcy the real solution?

[GoingDown]

Read all 3 pages of this thread...

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?67251-Exempt-funds

It has a lot of information that you might find useful.

In fact, read all the "stickies" in this forum. We made them stickies because they have already answered most of the questions newbies have when they first come to this forum.

All the information you need is there. You just need to spend a few hours reading and get up to speed.