The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on the Direct Express Debit Card program. Claimants who don't have a financial account into which benefits can be deposited can receive their money through a Comerica Bank debit card. The Comerica deal, which is with the Department of the Treasury, not Social Security, has been criticized because of high fees to benefits recipients and because people complained that they were assigned a debit card without asking for one. The OIG report found that there were some Social recipients complaining about receiving a debit card without asking for one. The OIG report also found that there has been a fair amount of money returned to Social Security by Comerica because of unfinished enrollments and that Social Security has been slow in making sure the claimants involved received their money. OIG found 39 cases where a claimant had been owed over $100,000.
8 comments:
Direct Express is the biggest cluster f*** of a company, it's unreal. You would swear that they have a total of like 4 people working their customer service line because all day, every day, SSA hears complaints from the public that they cannot get through to someone at Direct Express. Yes, SSA has its fair share of phone answering problems too, there is no denying that, but people can also walk into an SSA field office for help. That is not an option for Direct Express. Seriously, I constantly advise people to avoid DE if they can (which sometimes they can, sometimes they cannot). SSA needs to absolutely ditch DE but Im sure the contract has been signed for X amount of years, so probably not going to happen for a good while.
At our FO we advise against Direct Express enrollment in favor of getting a debit card at a local bank.
GN 02402.005 Direct Deposit Information for All Types of Interviews
A. Introduction to the Electronic Payment Initiative
The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) All-Electronic Payment Initiative requires that all Title II and Title XVI applicants select a form of electronic payment. Beneficiaries, recipients, and representative payees (rep payees) receiving payments by check were required to switch to a form of electronic payment by March 1, 2013.
A return to the postal saving & banking system could solve this problem, but there are major lobbying forces aligned against it.
https://www.investopedia.com/what-is-postal-banking-5217341
I represented a concurrent claimant. During the PERC, she provided her direct deposit info to the SSI CR, but the info never made it over to the DI side. The T2 folks just signed her up for Direct Express. I completely believe her that SSA never contacted her about it and she absolutely did not agree to enroll in it when she applied for benefits. She saved every document, called me any time SSA contacted her, and was very familiar with direct deposit from getting tax refunds that way.
I think that field office and PSC staff are overwhelmed, and it is faster to click the "enroll in Direct Express" box than to call someone and ask them for their account and routing numbers. Like so many other workloads at SSA, some employees are going to take shortcuts (especially those that are hard for the public to prove) and just let someone else fix any problems later.
Some claimants don't want to give bank info over the phone when they apply or don't have the information with them if they apply online or in person. If the claim is approved and they aren't available to give the information, they get direct express.
Just send a paper check.
I always tell my claimants not to do this, open a bank account. SSA can trace your money in an account but not in a direct express card. Also, if the card is lost or stolen, it takes weeks for that money to be replaced.
Post a Comment