Social Security payments are safe from debt collectors.

No matter what anyone tells you on the phone or harasses you saying you will be in trouble with Social Security - NOT SO! You can only get that income garnished for child support or IRS reasons or for student loans. Being young at 31 years I have debt collectors after me but I make sure they know the law, and I know the law as well. And depending on other states you may have additional rights.

While SS and other sorts of benefit payments are exempt from garnishment, this will not stop a collector from seizing funds from any bank account they find upon winning a judgment. The current wisdom, if direct deposit is mandatory, is to designate an account only for benefits deposits, have your bank classify it as such if possible, and never do anything but withdraw from it. Generally the banks are powerless to stop the poachers in the face of a court order, but this isolation may at least frustrate the ambush and provide a defense for funds recovery.

That said, anyone in a fractured English accent claiming absurdly "you have complaints against your Social Security number" is likely another payday loan scammer with zero proof. A numeric sequence cannot appear in court, except perhaps on Sesame Street.

can a debt collector garrishment a civil service retiree's pension?

No:

A recurring problem for recipients of direct deposit federal benefits has been the sudden freezing of their bank accounts containing these exempt funds once their bank has been served with a garnishment order.

Thanks to Mike Bulson for this important information:

Until recently, recipients were forced to request a court hearing within 10 days to challenge the seizure of their exempt funds, or they had to depend on the goodwill of the collection attorney (an oxymoron perhaps) in order to regain access to their accounts.  Now, help has arrived in the form of federal regulations published on February 23, 2011 that require banks to conduct a two-month lookback once a garnishment order is received.  If the lookback shows exempt funds deposited during this period, the bank must assure access to an amount equal to the benefits deposited or the current balance, whichever is lower.  The new regulations will appear at 31 C.F.R. Part 212.  The following is a summary of some of the key points in the regulations.

What federal benefits are protected by the new rules?

The protected benefits include: Social Security, SSI, VA, Railroad Retirement, Railroad unemployment and sickness, Civil Service Retirement and Federal Employee Retirement.

http://www.utahlegalservices.org/advocate/blo ... ederal-benefits

Great post.   Thanks.

What about food stamps?

They can't touch that either!
It's an empty threat.