Boy’s Life Savings--$18.28--Seized to Pay Dad’s Hospital Bill

A collection agency seized a 4-year-old boy’s life savings--$18.28--as partial payment for his father’s hospital bill.

Floyd Russell, a ticket agent for Greyhound Bus Lines, said his heart hurts more from the raid on his son’s trust fund account than from the chest pains that got his family into debt.

“I guess we’ll just suffer,” Russell said last week. “I’m too poor to take a lawyer to court and fight them.”

Russell said the money in the account had been given to his son, Sean, for Christmas and birthdays.

Russell said Valley Credit Service seized his son’s account, along with the family’s checking and savings accounts, at First Interstate Bank of Oregon’s Salem branch to pay his $994 medical bill.

The seizure of the $929 will force the family to move in with Russell’s mother. Russell said his Greyhound job pays $10,000 a year.

Floyd Smith, a vice president for the bank, refused comment on specific accounts. But he said Oregon law generally considers parents to be the owners of trust fund accounts they set up for their children and the garnishment is legal.

“It does put the bank in an awkward position,” he said.