From the Miami Herald:
As the feds put the screws to South Florida criminals who steal income-tax refunds, more thieves have come up with alternative scams to rip off government benefits — most notably, from elderly Social Security recipients, according to authorities.
By tapping into a federal website, “My Social Security,” they have been able to swipe names, dates of birth and ID numbers to open online accounts and redirect retirement benefits from the victims to themselves. ...
Frisler Clairvil, 29, of Lauderdale Lakes was charged in mid-November with stealing more than 1,300 identities of Social Security recipients and redirecting more than $300,000 in benefits to himself by manipulating personal information on the “My Social Security” website from 2013 to 2015, according to an indictment. ...
Shocking!
ReplyDeleteI think the second paragraph is misleading. They are getting the names, DOBs and SSNs from somewhere else, and then using this to open My Social Security accounts and redirect checks.
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope you are right that thieves aren't going onto My Social Security and being able to find my personal information. I spent 5 hours day before yesterday and two hours yesterday on MSS talking to three different SSA representatives as well as my bank. My cats needed food and I had noticed no deposit from SSA. In the end every person getting an SSI deposit on the 1st at my bank in addition to other area banks did not receive their deposits. Yesterday that was corrected for most recepients but not all. I am in the latter group of course. I got instructions at my bank to call SSA. I did so and was told my deposit could come in after my rent is due. I have not been late with rent since 2005 but will still have to pay an extra $95.00 and have that on my rental record. I talked to some nice representatives at both SSA and my bank who say there was a "missing tape" or "file" from SS. I wonder why the situation was corrected yesterday for most SSI recepients and then not for some, like me, for days? I have no deposit at this moment and am told it could be the better part of a week, by the last SSA person I spoke to. I am calling my local branch tomorrow. I hope there is a good explanation and I can trust this not to happen often.
DeletePatricia, as you noted there is an issue with payments. Go to your local office. They can make sure you make rent.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Sure your local office will take care of that! Oh thank you for the laugh! They will send a message to Payment Center, PC will do what they always do, a great deal of nothing. They are fine when things work, when they dont, they have no clue. And how about some accountability? Anybody at PC getting fired for missing payments to number holders? Nope, and if they are senior members of the agency they will get a bonus.
ReplyDelete@ 1:21 you are clearly a troll and not an SSA employee. Patricia is missing her SSI payment. SSI payments are completely processed by field offices without PC involvement. Field offices have the ability to draft emergency SSI payments in certain scenarios exactly like this one. Your comment makes no sense
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