SSI and paying bills online
 

Hello. First of all I want to say that I am a payee to my son who has been receiving SSI for about 2 years now.

It wasn't until recently that I learned that he had credit card debt that he owes. His SSI comes through a joint-bank account for payees where he receives direct deposit. (I'm sorry as I'm not sure the exact term/name for this type of banking)

Anyway, to summarize I want to pay his credit card bills with the extra money leftover after his rent, groceries, clothes, and etc are taken out and paid for.

However this requires me using the bank account as a payment method on his credit card account. I wanted to ask if this was allowed or if there were any other hoops I have to go through to make this okay? It seems that you can only pay the bill through a direct withdrawal via bank account.

If anyone can help me out, I'd very much appreciate it. Thank you

When was the debt incurred? Prior to your becoming Rep Payee or after? Is the CC account still open?

According to him, it occured before. It is still open.

Who do you bank with? My bank has a "Billpay" feature where you can pay bills out of your checking or savings account. There is usually an online tutorial to show you how it works.

It's through Huntington Bank. The question was more or less if it was acceptable as a payee to pay credit card bills using the account under as a payee. I don't want to do anything that would potentially jeopardize his benefits.

Wasn't sure if the option was there under a payee - beneficiary checking account or not for this sort of thing.

The problem is less with him losing his benefits, and more that you could be held responsible for allowing him to misspend funds. He should provide you with all the bills so you can see what he has spent the money on.

I would suggest he either needs to close the CC account or agree to a fixed amount that he can charge per month. Otherwise, you're allowing him to circumvent your role as Rep Payee.

If he refuses, then I would advise you make him use a Rep Payee service. They'll charge him 10% of his benefits, but it'll protect you.

It doesn't matter how you pay the bill, but again you shouldn't be blindly paying it.

Understood.

However as I said this happened before he got on SSI and before I was made his payee. I had no idea he was keeping this bill from me as he never mentioned it. He showed me the statements and it was made/spent 2 years before he was put on SSI.

However he is closing the account and we'll go from there. Thanks for the information. I just wanted to make sure it was allowed for me to pay his monthly payments with this type of bank account or not or if there would be a problem with SSA in doing so.

Thanks for the help.

In the brochure that explains your responsibilities SS actually states, "If you’re not sure if it’s okay to use money for a specific item (for example, paying a bill owed before you became payee), contact Social Security before you spend the money."

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10076.pdf