As an attorney, I have not noticed increased wait times for local FO numbers or the payment center compared to the last 4 years...but what is noticeable is the incompetence of the staff answering the phones. They simple are not trained properly, so the usefulness of calling has dropped dramatically.
By the way, there is office within SSA that is virtually impossible to contact--Office of Earnings & International Operations (unit 8). I have my first international reciprocal work credit case and the claim has hit a deadend post-approval. This claim was first started in 2018, and I retained last year for the hearing appeal. Since the approval, trying to contact the international office has been impossible. And when I call the regular payment center, they have repeatedly given me the defunct number for payment center 8 (I found the correct number). At this point we got the Congressman's office involved. Anyone have tips for contacting the international office?
About 10 years ago I had a case where we needed proof of Italian earnings (by an African man who didn't have much information) take 4 years to approve and there was no appeal. Not sure why it took that long. Couldn't ever get anyone at PC8 to answer the phone.
PC8 is a crapshoot. I’ve had cases where I had a kid in my servicing area and then other kids in a foreign country (all applying on same NH record). It took the better part of 8 months of fighting with PC8, the ADO getting involved multiple times even. Eventually my office had to just take control and do the damn thing so the claimants stopped being disadvantaged. Even still, PC8 completed messed up the back payment for all those months. Idk what the deal is but that office has serious issues and there seems to be zero accountability.
Commissioner O'Malley has made the conscious decision to fund (waste money) on bringing employees back into the office at HQ and the ROs and not spend it on the 1-800 number. He also spends a lot of money making fancy marketing videos that don't run properly on SSA computers.
@1055 What is the waste, in money, the O'Malley is doing by bringing employees back into HQ and ROs? Aren't those offices already being rented or are already paid for whether anyone goes to work there or not? I don't know how much money is wasted on his videos but I was under the impression they were SSA produced.
One thing the agency never came to grips with nor even acknowledges is how the telephone system replacement project (TSRP) and the move to VOIP in the 2008-2011 period is the catalyst for the mess field offices are in. Prior to TSRP, telephone service and call volumes to FOs were unknown. There was no data or information. Consequently, when the switch to TSRP FO had to divert resources away from walk in traffic and away from claims to provide service via phones to address the “oh sh!t” overreaction when TSRP/voip provided visibility into that are. The end result from that simple change in technology was FOs effectively lost at least 2-3 FTEs because more employees had to be reassigned to phones — permanently. The cascading effects are still being felt.
Well, you are talking about SSA here. When was it ever NOT going to be a debacle? I can't recall anything SSA has done related to systems and phones in the last 15 years that wasn't one.
Most SSA executives couldn't find their arses locked in a closet with a map, a flashlight, and their 10 favorite bootlicking minions.....
10 comments:
As an attorney, I have not noticed increased wait times for local FO numbers or the payment center compared to the last 4 years...but what is noticeable is the incompetence of the staff answering the phones. They simple are not trained properly, so the usefulness of calling has dropped dramatically.
By the way, there is office within SSA that is virtually impossible to contact--Office of Earnings & International Operations (unit 8). I have my first international reciprocal work credit case and the claim has hit a deadend post-approval. This claim was first started in 2018, and I retained last year for the hearing appeal. Since the approval, trying to contact the international office has been impossible. And when I call the regular payment center, they have repeatedly given me the defunct number for payment center 8 (I found the correct number). At this point we got the Congressman's office involved. Anyone have tips for contacting the international office?
Good luck. They are hard enough to get a response from even internally. I can only imagine what it takes for someone outside of the agency.
About 10 years ago I had a case where we needed proof of Italian earnings (by an African man who didn't have much information) take 4 years to approve and there was no appeal. Not sure why it took that long. Couldn't ever get anyone at PC8 to answer the phone.
I WISH 38 minutes was the wait time. That would be luxury. I've waited over 1.5 hours.
PC8 is a crapshoot. I’ve had cases where I had a kid in my servicing area and then other kids in a foreign country (all applying on same NH record). It took the better part of 8 months of fighting with PC8, the ADO getting involved multiple times even. Eventually my office had to just take control and do the damn thing so the claimants stopped being disadvantaged. Even still, PC8 completed messed up the back payment for all those months. Idk what the deal is but that office has serious issues and there seems to be zero accountability.
Commissioner O'Malley has made the conscious decision to fund (waste money) on bringing employees back into the office at HQ and the ROs and not spend it on the 1-800 number. He also spends a lot of money making fancy marketing videos that don't run properly on SSA computers.
@1055 What is the waste, in money, the O'Malley is doing by bringing employees back into HQ and ROs? Aren't those offices already being rented or are already paid for whether anyone goes to work there or not?
I don't know how much money is wasted on his videos but I was under the impression they were SSA produced.
One thing the agency never came to grips with nor even acknowledges is how the telephone system replacement project (TSRP) and the move to VOIP in the 2008-2011 period is the catalyst for the mess field offices are in. Prior to TSRP, telephone service and call volumes to FOs were unknown. There was no data or information. Consequently, when the switch to TSRP FO had to divert resources away from walk in traffic and away from claims to provide service via phones to address the “oh sh!t” overreaction when TSRP/voip provided visibility into that are. The end result from that simple change in technology was FOs effectively lost at least 2-3 FTEs because more employees had to be reassigned to phones — permanently. The cascading effects are still being felt.
Regarding phone systems, just wait until the full extent of the NGTPS debacle comes to light...
@3:01pm,
Well, you are talking about SSA here. When was it ever NOT going to be a debacle? I can't recall anything SSA has done related to systems and phones in the last 15 years that wasn't one.
Most SSA executives couldn't find their arses locked in a closet with a map, a flashlight, and their 10 favorite bootlicking minions.....
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