5/18/26 - Laws that Protect Seniors Income

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, Eric Olsson from Helps here today on May 18th, 2026. Good to have you here. Uh my name is Eric Olsson, attorney for Helps.

[00:00:11]Um been attorney now for 48 years, founder of Helps. Our most important message to seniors and disabled persons. If you're struggling with debt that you can't afford to pay, maybe you've maybe you've been sued, maybe there's a judgment against you. I want you to understand that your social security is protected. No one can take it. Same with your pension, your IRA, your VA benefits. Virtually all forms of retirement income are protected under federal and state laws. It's there for you. Now, we do this helps. What we do is we we represent seniors and disabled persons throughout the country that owe debt under a federal law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. That law provides that if you're represented by an attorney, collectors can no longer communicate with you. They have to communicate with the attorney. Okay? And when people find out about helps and they enroll in helps, they give us the creditors they owe money to that they don't want to deal with. We send out what's called a cease and desist letter and we represent you ongoing literally literally forever for the rest of your life. You can always call with questions no matter how often. If you get sued, you get us a copy of the lawsuit. We send a letter to the attorney who sued you, letting him know that your income is safe and protected. Uh explain to you why you don't need to go to court and why you don't need to worry. Okay, that's what we do. And we do a lot of other things too. Our second mission is to educate seniors how they can maintain their financial independence. So we talk about other topics too uh that will help you realize what debt you don't have to pay. uh you know, maybe you don't maybe you don't have to you don't have to worry about keeping that car. Maybe let a a time share go back or why you don't need to worry about a lawsuit. All all kinds of things we deal with. Okay? And so if you have any questions, you can put them in the chat feature. Uh you can always press the like button if you like. We're always subscribe to our channel. And if you have any other questions, you can always call our phone number down 8554357787.

[00:02:18]We've got uh parallegals and attorneys on right now that are talking with people and talk with you. Okay. So, um I'm glad to have you here. The topic to today is I started I thought I'd start out by the laws that protect your income. We don't we talk about it all the time, but I thought I' I'd show you actually the laws. Okay. So, um let me get this moved out of the way here.

[00:02:58]So, social security, it's been protected since 1935.

[00:03:05]Okay. Uh, here is the actual law.

[00:03:16]And this is from the social security website.

[00:03:20]It's uh the way the law is it's it's 42 USC 407.

[00:03:27]And it says the right of any person to any future payment under this title shall not be transferable or assignable at law or in equity. and none of the monies paid or payable or rights existing under this title shall be subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process or the operation of any bankruptcy or insolveny law. Okay, that's pretty clear, but I I'll explain I'll explain it. So, other words, if you get social security, you can't transfer or assign it to another person. I mean, it's yours. I mean, once it gets in your account, if you want to give it to someone, that's up to you. But you can't you can't give someone the right to receive your social security. They want that to be available to you no matter what.

[00:04:11]Um so if if it's paid, none of the money is paid or payable. So if you're paid your social security, uh it's not subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or the legal.

[00:04:23]In other words, it can't be taken from you. It is it's there.

[00:04:29]It's protected.

[00:04:31]Okay, that's 42 USC 407 and it's part of the social security laws and it's it's there. It can't be taken. Now, um you might want to wonder about your pension.

[00:04:50]Okay, so here's another one.

[00:04:53]Um, here we go.

[00:05:12]So, most pensions are protected under a federal law called Orisa. That's the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

[00:05:22]Okay. Um, if your pension isn't protected under Orisa, it will be protected under a state law. Okay. Um, so your pension isn't at risk either. They can't garnish it or take it from you. Okay. So, uh, here here here's the law. I'll show it to you. Here we go.

[00:05:49]This is um uh 29 US code 15 15 1056 form of payment of benefits.

[00:06:01]And I scroll down here.

[00:06:05]I got to find it.

[00:06:23]I had it and I lost it here. I'll find it. Here we go.

[00:07:12]It's in here now.

[00:07:19]It's embarrassing.

[00:07:22]There's a bunch of gobbly goop. before you get to it. Um, okay, here we go. D, it's right near the front. Each pension plan shall provide that benefits provided under the plan may not be assigned or alienated.

[00:07:45]Now, what's that mean?

[00:07:48]You you can't assign your pension to someone else. You can't go to a company and say, "Okay, here I'll give you the benefit for my pension if you give me a lump sum cash." No, you can't do that. Um or um it's it's not subject to garnishment. They can't garnish your pension.

[00:08:12]Okay? They can't take that, you know.

[00:08:16]Now once it once it leaves your once the pension leaves the pension fund is distributed to you then it goes under state law and most states protect a pension the cash that's you know once you get it other words they can't take it from you um you remember OJ Simpson he had a judgment against him for millions of dollars and yet he got a pension from the uh when he played football of like $30,000 a month. They weren't able to garnish any of that money. He was able to keep every penny of that. They they weren't able to take it from him. So, your pension is protected. Okay.

[00:08:58]Um now, the same thing is for an IRA.

[00:09:08]It's still covered under the same thing.

[00:09:12]and virtually all forms of now what else is it the VA benefits are protected um you name it any form of retirement is is going to be protected can't be taken from you now then people wonder well okay Eric what happens if it gets deposited in my bank account and someone has a judgment against me can they take it out of my bank account okay now if you've been listening to me which many of you have you know what I'm going to say But we got a lot of new people all the time.

[00:09:48]It used to be a problem when seniors would get sued, they get a judgment, then a creditor would garnish their bank account and maybe they had social security going in their bank account and the creditor would take the money out of their bank account. And now the senior didn't realize that that money that was taken out of their bank account was protected and they could file paperwork to the court to get it released to them.

[00:10:10]was causing a hardship. So back in 2012, Congress put through put through a rule that told banks if they got a rid of garnishment, they were to examine the money that was deposited into the bank account. So a garnishment is like someone gets a judgment against you, then they can deliver an order telling your bank that they're delivering any money that they're holding for you to pay to the garnish whoever's doing the garnishment. the person who has the judgment against you. Well, in n in 2012, banks put into effect a rule. They told the banks, I mean the government put in a rule that told the banks, if you get a rid of garnishment, you're to examine the bank account in for this person that was garnished.

[00:10:56]If you have a bank account for them, if he has a bank account with your bank, you examine where the money came from.

[00:11:02]And if it came from a federal source like social security, a federal pension, uh VA benefit, railroad work retirement, uh federal worker retirement, post office retirement, those are all federal pensions, including social security. You take whatever that sum is they get each month times two the the amount for the last two months and they're to automatically protect that amount from garnishment without you having to do anything at all regardless if there's other funds in the account. So if you got 1,500 in social security 3,000 in your bank account is protected in the event someone sued you got a judgment and they tried to garnish your bank account. your bank will protect that without you doing anything. You don't need to contact your bank to to ask him that question. If you talk to your bank manager, I can almost guarantee you he will not know the answer. He doesn't need to because he's not that's not his that's not his uh Bailey Wick. He's not in charge of garnishment. So, there's a department of the bank that is.

[00:12:10]Um, we don't want you to worry.

[00:12:41]Okay.

[00:12:49]So, this person writes in, they say, "I have lots of credit card debt. I'm 67 years old.

[00:12:57]My car lease is up in one year." Oh, this was a comment on one of our YouTube videos, I think. If I stop paying the cards, will I be able to get another car lease? My husband is in a nursing home with endstage Parkinson's.

[00:13:12]Uh, our income includes his state pension, his social security, my social my social security, and I do some other side work and get a small amount of income from that. But I need transportation.

[00:13:25]The car lease is in my husband's name, and if he passes away, I'm very concerned that I will not get another lease. if I default on my credit cards, can you help me, please? Okay.

[00:13:40]And and so I I wrote her back or I wrote a comment back. Um she's 67 years old.

[00:13:47]Okay. And the she's worried about the car is going to go up in a year. Um and She didn't say this, but it was on the She was paying uh $1,100 a month on her credit card bills. Okay, I looked at the more on the file, paying $1,100 a month.

[00:14:15]And she's worried if I if I stop paying $1,100 a month, my credit's going to take a dive and when the lease is up, they may not renew give me a new lease.

[00:14:24]I can't afford to pay a lease. Okay.

[00:14:28]Um, well, one thing, when the husband passes away, you're going to get the higher of the two social securityities.

[00:14:35]So, part of the social security is going to go away. Are you going to get part of his pension, uh, state pension? It depends on how he set it up. More likely than not, you'll probably get his full pension or half of it at least.

[00:14:47]Um, but you know, if you're paying $1,100 for for a car payment or for credit card payments and you're worried about, you know, where you going to come up if they're going to give you a new lease in a year from now, you know, you could take that $1,100 or part of it and set it aside and save it. And in in a year you'll have you'll have close to $10,000 and you could buy a really nice car for cash, a used car for cash. Then you don't have to be sucked up with a lease.

[00:15:22]If you get a car for cash, then you only need to get liability insurance. You don't have to have confident collision.

[00:15:27]You don't have a payment every month. If the husband passes away and his incomes goes away, you don't need to worry about a car payment. So, you know, there's different ways of dealing with that kind of thing. So that might be one way to solve that problem cuz you know when he goes away, if he passes away and your income goes down, there may not be enough money to to make a lease payment. But right now, if you're paying $1,100 a month on so on credit card bills, you could stop paying those. Okay? They can't touch your social security. They can't touch your pension.

[00:16:01]They're not going to be able to take your self-employment income. It's a practical matter.

[00:16:07]Even if you got sued and they got a judgment against you, it's not going to matter. You could protect that little cash you you save up, okay? And have that money to buy a car for cash.

[00:16:23]Okay. Um, personal license. I'm I'm on social security disability. My wife is a school teacher with crippling student loan debt, but I'm I'm writing about I'll talk about student loans here in a second, but I'm writing about my credit card debt. I had no choice to quit paying it because of inflation and we needed to money for the student loan debt.

[00:16:48]Probably not really, but we'll go on. We also have uh a child that has some difficulties that cost money. I just don't know what to do. No one has sent me any court summons or anything, but I don't want one either. I know they don't always, but I want to get ahead of it, and I don't have the money to pay the credit card debt.

[00:17:13]Okay. So, I'm I'm assuming that maybe the debt is just in his name. His only income is social security.

[00:17:25]Okay.

[00:17:27]um if he doesn't pay that debt and they sue him, uh they can't touch his social security.

[00:17:35]His wife's a school teacher.

[00:17:38]I don't know how long how long she has to work. Um we talk about that.

[00:17:54]So, if you're if you're on social security or a pension and retired and not working and you have a student loan right now, the government isn't doing anything to collect on those student loans. Okay? Now, they may start up again. Um, and they might start up soon, but I got a feeling they're going to delay it. Um, the most they would do is say send a letter saying they intend to offset 15% of your social security. They normally don't sue. They don't do that for a student loan. They can just offset 15% of social security. They won't touch your pension or your other forms of income. Okay?

[00:18:34]They just go after a pension.

[00:18:36]I mean, they just go after your 15% of your social security. But they don't even do that now. They stopped that in 2018 and they haven't started it up yet.

[00:18:45]And if they do start it up, there'll be a program in effect where you can get you can be placed on a incomebased repayment plan. Often your payment would be $0 per month. So we'll call this person back and tell them they really don't have a whole lot to worry about.

[00:19:01]Okay. Sometimes, you know, things, you know, we take steps as they occur. You can't predict every little thing that's going to happen in the future, but uh a lot of times we have to deal with problems as they crop up. Okay.

[00:19:39]Okay, this is an example of what we do at Helps. So, when you enroll in helps, uh, you give us the creditors you owe money to. Okay? Uh, all we need is the name, address, and account number. Uh, we don't need the balance that you owe.

[00:19:58]That's not necessary. Um, I got to get my leg switch situated here. We don't need the balance that you owe. Um, we just ask that you give us a name, address, and there'll be an account number from the debt collector normally.

[00:20:18]And I'll give you an example. Today, the phones were ringing pretty busy and I picked up a phone. I knew it was a credit calling. nice guy and want to know if our client could offer some money for settlement. Well, we don't do that, but I got on the file.

[00:20:34]I looked at it and he had enrolled a year ago and he was 88. He was now at least 89.

[00:20:41]His only income was social security and a small pension. So, I told him, I said, "Yeah, we represent this man. Uh, his only income is was a social security and he gets a pension. he doesn't have any extra money to pay the debt and you know please don't communicate with him anymore.

[00:20:58]You've gotten a letter from us. That's why you called us. You can't afford to pay. I was really I was cordial to him.

[00:21:04]He was nice back. He says I'll note the file.

[00:21:08]Um I'll note the file. He said and we won't we won't bother him. Okay. And we do this all day long.

[00:21:17]We probably get more calls from creditors than any other phone call we get. And so we're used to dealing with them. Okay.

[00:21:26]Um if you so when you normally help you give us the creditors you owe money to.

[00:21:31]Now let's say 6 months a year, two years down the road you get a notice from a new different debt collector. Maybe one of the original creditors or debt collectors sold it to a new debt collector. Well, you're a client ongoing. So then you can get us a copy of the new debt collector's notice and we'll send a new cease and desist letter out to that new debt collector.

[00:21:51]Um, we ask usually that you fax it, email it, text it, or mail it to us, but we make exceptions. You know, I talked to sometimes I'll talk to a senior and they've just got one and they're not internet savvy and stuff. We'll just take it over the phone. We We don't want you to worry. Okay.

[00:22:13]So, this person wrote in and they said, "Do I have to tell collectors I'm not going to pay them?" No.

[00:22:21]Now, when when you enroll with helps or even if you don't enroll in help, you don't have to talk to a debt collector.

[00:22:27]You don't have to pick up that phone.

[00:22:29]You know, if you enroll in helps, then you're going to get us that information.

[00:22:33]We're going to get them a cease and desist letter. In the interim, they might call you. You don't need to talk to them. If they you don't need to pick up the phone and talk to them, but if you happen to pick up the phone, then you can tell them that you represent them by helps. You give them our name and number and then ask they don't bother you anymore. and then make sure that we get their information so we send them a cease and desist letter so they leave you alone all day all day long I talk to our clients that are rolling helps and they're thankful they said Erica I'm I'm just grateful for help because they're these creditors aren't bothering me anymore and that's why was started so you wouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing Okay.

[00:23:47]So, this guy got a a letter. I don't know if he was a client. William says, "Dear sir, madam, enclosed. Please find a voluntary dismissal. Finally, enter the dismissal. Remove any pending hearing from the list.

[00:24:00]Uh, I certify the defendant was given a so they dismiss the lawsuit." That occasionally happens when one of our clients gets sued. We're going to you're going to get us the who sued you. We're going to send a letter to the attorney and sometimes they just realize it's not worth their effort.

[00:24:15]They just dismiss the lawsuit. They don't always do that, but they do it occasionally.

[00:24:22]Eric, do you have a favorite? What's the AI platform? I'm not sure it's worth $17 a month. I'm not really into that yet.

[00:24:30]Sorry.

[00:24:33]I'll have to ask our tech guy.

[00:24:38]I know one thing helps is pretty sophisticated.

[00:24:42]Our computer system is pretty savvy.

[00:24:44]We've we got employees all over the country. Really don't have a physical office per se.

[00:24:51]We're all linked on the internet and uh all our mail goes out goes out automatically.

[00:25:01]Okay.

[00:25:03]Uh and I think it goes out from two places in the United States. get mil faster.

[00:25:09]And the other thing that we've done lately or several months ago or maybe longer than that is uh we don't really have technically a receptionist. We have a receptionist, but they're independent contractors and they're they speak good English and they but most of the phone calls are going to be answered directly by someone that can help you from helps. So sometimes when I'm working on a project, you know, I get the phone calls. I see the phone call will ring once, twice, and gets picked up maybe three times.

[00:25:45]Very rarely does a phone call not get answered right away from helps unless we're just getting overwhelmed with phone calls. Then it goes to this uh our remote reception who will take the message or they try to get it to us. So, it's kind of nice, you know, you get answers right away from helps.

[00:26:09]Are annuities protected in Florida?

[00:26:13]Yeah, annuities are protected in every state to one degree or another. So, you're not going to you shouldn't lose your I don't know the specific protections in Florida. I could find it out in just a second. You could you could do that yourself. But, but I will tell you this in 48 years of practice, 30 to 40,000 bankruptcies, I never had anyone come tell me that had a or even with help anyone had an issue with losing any of their annuity money. No.

[00:26:43]I mean, there may be an exception if you have more than a million dollars or something like that. Maybe.

[00:26:57]Okay.

[00:27:05]So, a person calls and they say, "Hello, my name is I'm looking for help for my granddaughter and her mother, which is my daughter.

[00:27:15]Uh, my granddaughter has um a form of cancer.

[00:27:27]The mother has struggled with so many bills due to going back and forth for treatment every day for six weeks and another six weeks for radiation for my 9-year-old granddaughter. Oh, bless their hearts. They thought they were going to have to take her amputate one of her body parts. Thank goodness they didn't.

[00:27:50]My daughter does work, but she's behind on a lot of bills and she struggled very hard. and I did what I could, which I almost lost my home last year trying to help her.

[00:28:02]Her name is, my granddaughter's name is, and then I guess she's asking us to call. We'll we'll call and talk to this person. We may not be able to help the daughter, but we'll be able to give her some ideas. We'll be able to definitely help the grandma.

[00:28:22]Now, the attorneys that work for helps, we filed thousands of bankruptcies. So, we we don't file bankruptcy now. That's not what we do. But we know how to help people that have these financial problems. We can talk to them and give them the information they need.

[00:28:45]Person contacts from Texas.

[00:28:48]I'm being sued by LVNV Funding LLC. I was served on May 15th. I'm disabled and not working and I have written them twice to dispute the bill, but I'm still getting sued. How can I fight this? I need help immediately.

[00:29:09]Well, okay.

[00:29:12]We don't help people fight lawsuits.

[00:29:13]That's not what we do. Okay. Most of our most people that come to helps that owe debt, they owe the debt. They don't have a way to fight the lawsuit. Um, if if this person that contacted us that's being sued by LVNV funding is on social security pension disability says I'm disabled, not working.

[00:29:37]We're going to explain to them how their income is protected and that if they do nothing and this creditor gets a judgment, there's nothing the credit can do to collect from them. Now, if they really don't owe the debt, then, you know, I'm not going to discourage anyone from trying to defend the lawsuit. Okay?

[00:29:55]There's plenty of websites that help people do that.

[00:29:59]But a lot of our clients may have a dispute, but when it boils down to maybe it really isn't a dispute, maybe it's just a dispute over the amount of money.

[00:30:07]Bottom line is if if yours are protected and you do nothing, you get a judgment, they can't collect from you, you don't need to worry.

[00:30:14]Okay, this was a comment on one of our videos or it was a video we did with someone else. It says where I talked about how your income is protected in the bank account. They said, and they were telling me, they were saying, I know someone over 65 years old whose bank account was garnished today for an amount more than the amount they had available. Now, their account is overdrawn by a tremendous amount. The account is only funded by Social Security in a pension.

[00:30:48]Well, what's my answer?

[00:30:53]When a bank gets a rid of garnishment, if they've if they have and they only get a rid of garnishment if they sued you and they get a judgment, then under the law, they have two days to examine the account and determine where the money came from.

[00:31:10]Okay? And if it came from a federal source, then they have they have to protect twice the amount that you get each month.

[00:31:17]Now this person is saying hey you know the the account was garnished today for an amount more than the account had available.

[00:31:29]So what the bank probably did is they when they got a rid of garnishment they put a hold on the account until they examined the account.

[00:31:36]So if this person would have waited another day to make that comment they would have realized that money really wasn't taken from them.

[00:31:46]vast majority of the times the banks can check that money out, can check where the money came out within a few minutes and your and your income isn't held up.

[00:31:55]Only time that we ever run into a problem with a helps client is someone might call us on a Monday and say, "Hey, my bank account's been taken." And it's because the bank got the rid of garnishment on Friday. They didn't have a chance chance to examine the account and so they put a hold on it over the weekend and the person went to use their debit card and couldn't access their funds. I tell people that I said wait till later on today or tomorrow and the money should be released and frankly I never hear back because the money was released.

[00:32:27]This rule has been in effect since 2012.

[00:32:29]So the banks and credit unions are pretty good on being totally up to par with this law.

[00:32:35]Just don't expect anyone that works at your local bank to understand that rule.

[00:32:39]But the department of the bank that deals with garnishments understand. And like I've said a 100 times, 999 out of a thousand attorneys don't understand this rule because they don't practice in this area.

[00:32:56]Person writes in, they say, um, I'm being sued by American Express over a debt that is my late husband's even though I had a prenuptual agreement that says clearly that I am not responsible for his debt before, during, or after the marriage.

[00:33:13]Okay. So, what's the answer to that question? Well, if you have a prenuptual agreement, that's an, you know, before you get married, uh, that's an a contract between two parties before they get married that if they get a divorce or something happens, uh, what the other person's going to get, okay? Either at death or if there's a or divorce. And so this person is saying, "Hey, my prenuptual said I want to be responsible for his AMX bill."

[00:33:44]Well, that's right. You're not. But if you got an AMX bill during the marriage and you signed on it with American Express, that you were responsible for it, then that's a contract between you and American Express.

[00:34:00]Even though your husband, your prenuptual agreement said you weren't be responsible for it.

[00:34:06]I mean, American Express doesn't care about that. They you signed a contract with them that you would pay them.

[00:34:13]So, um that's why and if we'll tell this person, we'll go over it with them and if they're income is protected, we'll say, "Well, it doesn't matter."

[00:34:28]But your prenuptual agreement, American Express wasn't part of your prenuptual agreement.

[00:34:36]Now, if the debt was in the husband's name only, then he only is the one responsible for it. But if you agreed to pay the debt with American Express, then the prenuptual agreement isn't really in effect as far as American Express. They don't care who they get paid by, including you. But once again, if your income is social security or pension, disability, VA benefits, it's protected.

[00:34:59]You're not going to need to worry about it.

[00:35:08]I've been struggling. Person contacts us from Oregon. I've been struggling since my husband passed away. I have too much credit card debt. I feel guilty but need help.

[00:35:24]Um, you know, we got a, you know, we've got a lot of emails on specific topics and one of them is guilt and debt. We'll probably send that to that person. Why they shouldn't feel guilty. They didn't intend to run up that debt, but it just happened. Um, so, and you would pay it if you could, but you just can't afford to.

[00:35:48]If the spouse owes debt in their name only, is the innocent spouse at all responsible?

[00:35:55]Um, I'll explain.

[00:35:59]Uh, no. Then some people say, "Well, Eric, what about in a community property state?" Uh, there's seven states that are community property states. In a community property state, what's that means is if you have a debt and it's only in one of the spouses names, the other one is presumed to owe the debt as well.

[00:36:17]Um, and some people might say, well, gee, if you live in a community property state, you're still responsible for that credit card debt or that loan debt.

[00:36:25]Well, maybe.

[00:36:28]But one nice thing about I've been an attorney for 48 years and been doing this for so long, you know, we know what we know what the law is, but we also know what happens in the real world.

[00:36:40]It's not the practice of consumer judgment credtors or consumer creditors like a credit card company to go after a surviving spouse for a debt. Even in the community property state, they don't do it. Now, they theoretically could.

[00:36:58]I may have seen it happen once or twice, but uh no, it's it shouldn't be a problem.

[00:37:10]So, Franklin asked, "If we are being sued and is dismissed, how will we know?"

[00:37:20]Well, don't expect it to be dismissed, but if it is, you'll get a letter or a court notice saying it's been dismissed, okay?

[00:37:42]Food stamps penalized me. I took advantage of $300 to change accounts.

[00:37:48]Yeah.

[00:37:52]Okay.

[00:38:00]Person contacts us from Illinois.

[00:38:04]Um, good afternoon. I would like to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

[00:38:11]Uh, I'm 73 years old with a debt of $20,000 and I lost my job sincerely.

[00:38:22]Well, if you're 73 and you're not working, you're getting social security and a pension, you probably don't need bankruptcy. You need bankruptcy like a you couldn't afford a bankruptcy. You don't need it.

[00:38:34]You need bankruptcy like you need a hole in your It's not hole in your head. It's not necessary. Okay? bankruptcy is going to cost probably close to $2,000 or more. Okay.

[00:38:46]Um, you know, that's what helps us here for.

[00:38:51]I mean, like I explained, I probably filed 30 or 40,000 bankruptcy before I started. It helps. Seniors would come into me and I'd explain to them, hey, you don't need to file bankruptcy. Your income is protected. But I knew when I sent them home, creditors were going to call them and make their lives miserable. So, HELPS was started so that we could represent seniors under this Fair Debt Collection Practices Act as their attorneys. That way, debt collectors would have to leave them alone.

[00:39:18]So, we're going to tell this person from Illinois that, you know, you can file bankruptcy if you want, but you don't really need to.

[00:39:36]This is a question on YouTube.

[00:39:40]I have a friend I'm trying to help. She is 67. Her husband is in a nursing home with Parkinson's disease. Their income includes estate pension, social security, and her social security.

[00:39:58]Uh she also does some crafting and gets paid on some website.

[00:40:05]$19,000 worth of credit card debt. It's making it very difficult for her.

[00:40:19]Okay, this is the one I already talked about at the beginning where they had a car pay where they were paying $1,100 for the the car payment. She's worried about buying a car.

[00:40:29]So, it looks like the person emailed us and then uh a friend emailed us on the same question and we already answered that at the beginning today on YouTube live.

[00:40:47]And if you don't remember what I said is I said, "Okay, uh, if you're paying $1,100 in credit card debt, stop paying the credit card debt.

[00:40:58]Collect the money."

[00:41:00]And not very many months, you're going to have plenty of money to be able to buy a car for cash.

[00:41:06]You won't have you don't have to worry about a leasing another car or a car payment.

[00:41:11]You'll have your insurance will be less.

[00:41:14]You you'll be fine.

[00:41:22]Okay, here's one. And I tried calling this one back today.

[00:41:29]I don't know if they're listening to us.

[00:41:31]Probably not.

[00:41:33]But this, you know, a lot of things we talk about here on YouTube live. There's someone that this is going to apply to.

[00:41:40]So it says, "Thank you, Mr. Olson. I'm 79year-old widow on a fixed income and a member of your group.

[00:41:47]I still have not been able to get my social security change over to another bank because it's been very hard to get my direct deposit change over to another bank because I have not found anyone to bring me over to the social security office in a place in Georgia. And it's next to impossible to get that changed over on the on the on the phone. I don't have a smartphone. I only have a small tablet. my son purchased for me. It's so hard to understand how to get social security.

[00:42:16]Uh I think it's been done intentionally.

[00:42:19]You can't trust the government. I have two bank loans for 10,000 each. I do not have automatic payment set up. I'm still with this bank to receive my social security and they have already taken out money from my social security for fees. I'm not paid for two months. They threaten to take out more money.

[00:42:37]I'm kind of wondering if she's with a with a credit union. Sometimes credit unions when you sign up with them almost always they'll have an agreement in saying that they could take money from your account to pay a loan that you have. Banks don't have that.

[00:42:53]Um I've been having sleepless nights and higher blood pressure from all this. Mr. Olsson, please help. I tried calling.

[00:43:03]I couldn't leave a message. I emailed So this is, you know, they've changed the process a little bit and they have made it a more little bit more difficult to change your account.

[00:43:16]You can do it in the office. You can do it online. And so I sent her an email.

[00:43:23]You sign in to create an account. Go to social security.gov/myacount and you sign in. Benefits and payment details. Update. Click update. Direct deposit. Enter. Enter your new bank routing number, nine digits, and account number. Submit, review, and submit. Keep a copy for your confirmation.

[00:43:41]So, as long as she's got access to the internet, she should be able to do this online.

[00:43:47]Okay?

[00:43:50]And you should be able to do it online.

[00:43:51]Now, they may when you do it, they may text you a code or something like that to verify that it's you.

[00:44:03]I don't know if they've tried not trying to make it more difficult. They're trying to cut down on fraud.

[00:44:14]If necessary, I will turn it over to our tech man.

[00:44:21]I generally don't like to do that because he gets impatient. Well, he's patient, but I just like to use it sparingly. And he'll call her and try to lead her through to to get accomplished cuz apparently she can't get out of the house to go to the social security offices. It's in a different town, but I did email her what to do and hopefully she's going to call us back and other people. It helps. This is a problem we This is a question that happens all the time and we we try to help people with it.

[00:45:05]Okay. This potential client had uh 36,000 in consumer debt. Can't cover the monthly payments anymore.

[00:45:15]That average around $2,000.

[00:45:18]He has student loan debt, owes some taxes, looking to concentrate on paying the taxes off and cannot afford to pay the credit card debt. Receives $2,500 in social security.

[00:45:33]We'll talk to him. He probably isn't going to have to pay the taxes. Okay.

[00:45:39]If you if you have modest or lower income and that's about 20 $25 to $100 or or even a little bit more and you're single, you can get on what's called currently not collectible status with the IRS and you're not going to have to pay the IRS.

[00:45:55]So, in addition not having to pay the credit card debt and not having to pay the student loans, we can we can help him solve the problem with the taxes. we can send him an email on what to do about the taxes. The most the IRS would do if he doesn't pay the taxes is eventually they might send him a notice saying they're going to offset 15% of his social security after 60 days. They give him plenty of time to contact the IRS and apply for and get on currently not collectible status. Often you can do that over the phone.

[00:46:31]Okay.

[00:46:46]So tank says, "Eric, I talked to you last September about millet credit Javage block firm sending me discovery to try and enforce their judgment against me. I I prove protected income is over now."

[00:46:58]Yeah. A lot of times if you get a judgment depending on the state where you live, they may send you some follow-up paperwork under state law.

[00:47:10]A lot of times that's that follow-up paperwork doesn't give you your rights.

[00:47:13]If they do that to intimidate you, thinking you have to contact them to make payments, but you call us if you got a question on that kind of stuff.

[00:47:19]We'll be able to help you.

[00:47:41]My credit union has a $1,500 balance fee. Well, okay.

[00:47:46]If you bank at a bank or credit union and your income is social security and it's protected and you get a rid of garnishment, they can't charge you a garnishment fee. Just so you know.

[00:48:01]Um, and then I've got emails on I haven't talked to someone for a long time about this, but sometimes people would call me in and multiple NSF charges, several hundred, and I had an email on how to deal with that. A lot of times, uh, your bank manager has the authority to wave that fee or part of it. So, we'll talk to people about those kind of things.

[00:48:45]So, this person contacts us from Arizona.

[00:48:49]Um, they were served a summon by LVNV funding.

[00:48:54]Uh, she lives with her daughter and pays her daughter rent.

[00:49:00]She has a car that she's making payments on and she was looking to see what we do.

[00:49:07]has a joint bank account with her daughter for the LL for an LLC.

[00:49:13]She was worried they would go after that income. Now, LLC is a is a corporation.

[00:49:17]It's a separate legal entity. If someone sues you and gets a judgment, they're not going to go after your LLC. LLC, but this is where she gets to her question. She's been in two accidents the last six months and is waiting on a settlement and is wanting to know how to handle that re handle that money.

[00:49:35]Okay.

[00:49:38]In almost every state, uh, an award for an accident for per for pain and suffering is protected by a state law. Okay? Including Arizona.

[00:49:52]Now, the only way and so what we would tell people normally is is to keep the fund segregated. If you wanted to keep it in a bank account, if you got a personal injury award and it's protected in your state, which it probably is, then if you got a lump sum, you would you would open up an account and only have that money in there and you wouldn't co-mingle it with other funds. That way, if there ever was a garnishment, you could file some paperwork with the court to show that the money came from a personal injury award and the court would order that money be protected. You wouldn't lose it.

[00:50:30]Okay.

[00:50:32]But you talk to us. We give you some options.

[00:50:55]Person contact us from New Jersey.

[00:51:04]um he's 70 years old and gets 1,500 in social security.

[00:51:08]To whom I may concern, I am inquiring about what is the best decision to make as far as not paying all credit cards or filing bankruptcy.

[00:51:20]We need help. Our monthly bills are higher than our social security check.

[00:51:27]Uh thank you for listening.

[00:51:29]We're in the mid70s.

[00:51:31]Our credit is good and we are current on the bills, but we're running out of time.

[00:51:38]We're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[00:51:41]We sent him a bunch of emails like um that was back in early April.

[00:51:55]They called, left a message later in April and then we connected with them on April 27th uh and told them what about helps and what we do and it looks like they just enrolled a couple days ago like last week.

[00:52:16]Okay.

[00:52:35]person from Utah contacts. They're 65 and 62.

[00:52:39]They get 2,2100 in social security for the husband and 700 for the wife. They have credit card debt. They stopped payments around three years ago.

[00:52:55]and they got a some they've got several judgments and long-term health issues.

[00:53:05]Wife had a stroke.

[00:53:07]We went over the protections and what we do and they enrolled in helps. It's what we do. Don't want them to worry.

[00:53:18]person contacts us from uh Idaho. I'm a senior on social security.

[00:53:25]I'm 70 years old. I own a mobile home on rented space.

[00:53:30]If I'm sued, can they put a lean on the trailer?

[00:53:34]I'm in Idaho and the home is homesteaded. The exemption is higher than my equity. So, so here's let's talk about mobile homes.

[00:53:47]There's a difference between a mobile home in a park and a mobile home on land.

[00:53:52]Okay? A mobile home in a park, you know, if if it's a mobile home on land that you that you're buying, then a judgment lean normally can become a lean on real property, that means land or a mobile home on land. Okay?

[00:54:10]Especially if the mobile home's been detitled. Okay?

[00:54:15]In most states, a mobile home by itself, in a park, not on land you own, a judgment isn't a lean on the mobile home. Now, there may be a way that they could try to enforce the lean, but they're not going to do that. And if there is, there's a way to avoid it.

[00:54:34]Um, so this person in Idaho, I'm in Idaho and the home is homesteaded. Yeah, it's it's going to be protected. They're not going to need to worry about it. Apparently, they own the But but they say it's on rented space. You can't really I know you can't really homestead a mobile home on rented space. is automatically protected under state law.

[00:55:07]We go over it with them.

[00:55:19]Okay.

[00:55:33]So this person contact us from Missouri for his mom who doesn't speak English and speaks some European language and apparently somehow mom in some fashion had gotten a loan with tower loans and is being harassed by them.

[00:55:57]Mom does not speak English. Zero.

[00:56:01]Um, he is the the son is her power of attorney and caregiver. Helps her with the bills.

[00:56:11]He's not sure if mom took out a loan with Tower Loans. Tower Loans is harassing her. They're coming to her house. They threaten jail time.

[00:56:23]He has tried to call him and they won't give any information to him, explain what we do and apparently enrolled with helps.

[00:56:30]So you know to I I read this about tower loans and I I wondered well how could this happen?

[00:56:40]I asked does tower loan employees get paid by commission?

[00:56:45]SR loan employees specifically in roles like manager and training, customer service representative and loan officers are paid a base salary with opportunity to earn performance and commissions and bonuses based on the number of loans sold.

[00:57:02]Which tells me that if this mom got a loan and her income is protected, someone was really anxious to make her a loan. Maybe because they get a commission.

[00:57:14]She can roll and help. She's not going to have to worry. This will take care of her.

[00:57:27]Okay, looks like we got time for one more here.

[00:57:32]They contacted us back in September of 24 just looking for more information. Went over what we did. We sent some emails, our general email about you. We sent an email about YouTube live. Who can helps help?

[00:57:51]Then they contacted us again a year later in August of 25.

[00:57:59]Rent, buying a car that she's having hard time affording, but not ready to cement. She retired last year in acred credit card and personal loan debt.

[00:58:12]We explained what we did, email her some more emails, talk to her about surrendering the vehicle, student loan debt, said she'll read the emails and call back with questions or to sign up.

[00:58:34]and she called again on May 14th of this year, which would have been last Thursday.

[00:58:41]Stopped making payments around a year ago.

[00:58:45]There was a judgment.

[00:58:49]We went over protections, what we do, and enrolled in helps.

[00:58:54]So that's it. So that's Monday for us.

[00:58:59]Uh if you have any questions, you can always call us on the phone below 8554357787.

[00:59:10]Um you can make some comments on our videos. We you know we try to answer questions and their questions are there.

[00:59:16]But I will see you tomorrow same time.

[00:59:19]God bless. You're going to be fine. If you have any, don't worry. If you have any questions, please give us a call.

[00:59:24]Have a great day. Bye.