Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in North Carolina

If you only receive SSI then that is exempt under federal law and cannot be garnished/levied regardless of whether you filed the NC exemptions. So either the bank messed up OR you commingled the SSI exempt monies with non-exempt monies belonging to you or another person. Which is it?

If the bank is the one that messed up, then you can present evidence showing the source of the funds and get the money back. In such case, go and have a talk with the bank and together you and the bank needs to have a talk with the sheriff if the funds have been turned over. If the bank just put a hold on the funds, then get the bank to release the hold because SSI cannot be garnished. There is also a federal treasury regulation on this.

If you have commingled SSI with non-exempt funds, then you lose the SSI protection and will lose the money. It is not coming back. The creditor is not going to give you the funds back - they do not care that you have expenses. You can make payment arrangements so they will not levy again, but this will not work for money that is already gone. You can try ... but I am telling you how creditors generally behave when it comes to a bank levy so don't expect them to do anything.

You can assert your constitutional exemptions at any time but the sheriff already levied so it might be too late. You only get $500 under the constitutional exemptions anyway. If the funds have been commingled, then stop commingling. Let the bank know that only SSI is in this special account and cannot be touched.