From the Albuquerque Journal:
“I was dumbfounded.”
That was James Shambo’s reaction when he got a letter from the Social Security Administration congratulating him on starting up his benefits.
Problem was, the 67-year-old retired certified public accountant had decided not to start collecting benefits until he was 70 ...
Just to rub salt in the wound, Shambo later got an IRS form in the mail so he could pay taxes on the money he had never received and did not want.
What was clear was that someone had stolen Shambo’s identity and made off with nearly $20,000 of his Social Security benefits. It’s a frightening tale of identity theft by a sophisticated criminal in what might be an unfolding consequence of last year’s Equifax breach.
“If you … are at or nearing retirement age, you need to know that hackers are targeting Social Security accounts,” said Shambo, a former chairman of the CPA institute’s Personal Financial Planning Executive Committee. “I found out the hard way.”
In the end, it took him a total of 11 hours and four separate visits to his local Social Security office to straighten the whole mess out. ...
Shambo said in a phone interview that his imposter applied for the benefits online, entering a fake email address and a phone number that had been changed by one digit. The thief arranged for the Social Security money to be deposited on a prepaid debit card. ...Members of Congress keep pressing Social Security to move all of its operations online. They just don't understand why the agency needs all of those field offices and tens of thousands of employees. Just let the computers do the work. They don't understand or care about the considerable risks. This man's story isn't unusual. This happens thousands of times a year. It's probably going to become more common.
6 comments:
Why do they want SSA to become a virtual operation? For the same reason that solo SSD reps work from home, and hedge-funded SSD rep companies use computer AI software instead of young lawyers to write their briefs. The private sector is trying to move to an employee-free, pension-free, health-care-free economy, and Congress wants the public sector to follow suit.
Don't boo. Vote.
The thing is, a lot of the RSI operations could be automated with simplifications of laws. Unless they work or are subject to paying higher Part B premiums because of income, most retirees never visit an office after the first year of filing. Just as few call the #800 to report address and phone changes (take my word on this). The only contact is usually when the bank information has changed or zip code updated.
If the post-entitlement part can be simplified and almost fully automated then SSA may make the verification part as difficult as possible when filing.
Cannot help with the SSI. Our problem cases are legal aliens who keep leaving the country and withdrawing funds each month from the domestic bank account.
News article relevant -of the "anomalous" internet claims I have seen, they are all frighteningly accurate as far as personal information. One that was challenged had the current marriage, prior divorce dates all correct, even the disabled child living in a group home. The only thing that made it questionable was the e-mail address and phone number. The phone number is always an out of region area code and the e-mail is a bunch of gibberish "oieworijweor83@gmail.com".
Why wouldn't it take four trips or more? It wont take long for people to try and claim they didn't file and get the benefits that they are pocketing on the side. Not everyone coming to SSA is telling the 100% truth every single transaction.
Fixing it involves making a report to OIG, notifying regional office, RO notifying PC to kill credit the MBR and probably a few other steps. It's not just deleting an email. All of these things take time, some investigation, etc and sometimes the ball gets dropped along the way.
@3:33
"Not everyone coming to SSA is telling the 100% truth every single transaction." I assume you are including SSA employees with this statement.
10:59 since they are fewer I am sure they can be counted, at least they are not ripping off the system with fraud and committing perjury.
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