From a TV station that wants to be known as "6 South Florida":
As Maria Elena Ruiz was getting ready to pay her father's medical bills for the month, she realized there was a big problem.
"There was no money!" she said.
Federico Ruiz's monthly Social Security check should have been deposited directly into his bank account. But it looks like a payday came for a crook instead.
"Somebody just went on the Internet, and it just got paid," Maria Elena Ruiz remarked.With some key pieces of the senior citizen's personal information and a few clicks on ssa.gov, the thief was able to create an online account. It redirected Mr. Ruiz's benefits to a bank account controlled by the thief. ...
According to the agency’s inspector general, there have been just over 600 such allegations made nationwide between February and April 29.Social Security has to do something about this. It's just irresponsible to leave this gap. It's hundreds of cases now but it may be tens of thousands in a few months.
7 comments:
I have made a suggestion or two to ssa recently about myssa account. If any ssa employee here that work directly with the online account administratively then i have another suggestion.
Once someone change their account information ssa should verify the bank account holder or owner of the new account number.
Sounds like a very good suggestion.
Confirmation NH 72 hours after change request via telephone. Problem solved. Unfortunately, not enough staff for this.
How about an email confirmation code sent to the old email address. Code not returned, No Deposit.
Or send a code during the process change either to cell phone (like reps with ARS) or email. Enter the code to make change valid.
800 Reps and SRs please read this
OA 00240.010 Registration and Customer Support (RCS) In-Person New Customer Registration
STOP telling people to call Experian when they can't set up an account themselves.
600 cases that they admit to.
I promise you, it has happened to a lot more than 600 people. They just don't want to admit it because then they'd have to admit to wasting millions of dollars on infrastructure which can't be secured.
"6 South Florida" is WTVJ, Miami.
If your aren't going to create a "my Social Security" account block online access to keep someone else from doing it:
https://secure.ssa.gov/acu/IPS_INTR/blockaccess
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