From NBC Chicago:
… [L]ast summer Jo and Holly Howard visited the Social Security office in Woodstock. The good news: Jo Howard was issued a check for almost $55,000 [under the Social Security Fairness Act] and The bad news - she never got it. …
It turns out, just five days after the check was issued in June, it was cashed. According to the police report, the ‘female suspect, employed by Amazon inc’ was using an ID with Jo Howard’s information.
“We thought the case would be solved, that she would be prosecuted,” she stated.
According to the police report,there was even video of the suspect cashing the check at the bank. But the officer "could not open the encrypted file." That lead was quickly abandoned, and then Old Dominion Bank stopped responding to the police department, police stated.
“So the police just closed the case,” Holly Howard said. …
“I made seven trips to the Social Security office. Every time you see a different person, you get a different story,” she said.
On the seventh visit, Jo Howard said she was told to file a theft report with the U.S. Treasury Department. Now almost a year from the theft, she said the investigation is just ramping up. …
Does the Secret Service still investigate these cases? The Secret Service isn’t even in the Department of the Treasury. It’s in Homeland Security now. Has she even contracted the right agency? Doesn’t Social Security have an obligation to pay this woman now, regardless of the investigation? Whether the crook gets caught is irrelevant. Where is Social Security’s Office of Inspector General? Old Dominion stopped responding? No kidding. If they accepted a forged endorsement they’re the ones on the hook for this fraud. I remember that much about the U.C.C.
Please, no snarky remarks about the Social Security Fairness Act. If she’s owed the money, she’s owed the money.
15 comments:
SSA OIG….lmao
Should have used direct deposit. My recollection is that Treasury has to determine the check was fraudulently cashed and give SSA credit back before the payment can be reissued. However, it sounds like she may not have notified SSA that the check was not received. All SSA would see is that it was cashed.
What's a "check"? Why not receive direct deposit or Direct Express?
No snarky remarks here! You're absolutely correct that ODB accepted a fraudulent check. Something similar happened with my bank (not ODB) years ago. I told them firmly (in person) "You gave away my money illegally, and that is fraud, abuse or whatever I'm going to sue you for!" after 4 months long of arguing then they went silent and I had to go to a branch, they didn't like there was 7 or so people in line behind me, and I was firm, but not very quiet about it. There was money in my account the next day. It certainly wasn't $55,000, it was only a few hundred, close to $1000 or so, I think. SAME circumstances, just was not a SSA check, it was a refund check. I tried to get the SSA office of inspector general after my local office this last year (different reason) and the page said there wasn't one, and said nothing about an Acting IG. This poor lady. Yes, she should go after the bank. It's easier than trying to get an Acting IG that one can't even find on the webpage. I do know that the Secret Service works with the Postal IG for postal fraud too. Secret Service is occupied at the moment, or just don't care anymore? Things are changing in our country, and not for the good. The poor lady in this situation should file suit against ODB. Especially if there is video evidence and they KNOW who criminal is! Video does not lie.
Two issues here: getting her the money she's owed, and prosecuting the person who stole it. For the former, her Congressional constituent service folks might be helpful. For the latter (if the check was stolen from the mail), reporting it to the Postal Inspection Service might work...they don't mess around.
Should have asked an SSA manager for help. LOL
The “we don’t need more fraud prosecutors” crowd just got real quiet.
Sounds like it's not a SS issue. It was paid, no fraud on the SS side. Call the authorities and get direct deposit.
If this happened to me I would go directly to my Congressman and Senators and raise holy hell. I'd also go to the state Attorney General's office as well.
Pretty sure retroactive payments were issued via the same method as monthly payments are issued. If monthly by direct deposit then the retro by direct deposit. And if monthly by check then the retro by check. While some people do receive paper checks, they are in the minority. I wonder if her check was mailed to the correct address (and intercepted before/after hitting her mailbox) or to an incorrect address. If this was a monthly payment not received, the local office would have issued an immediate payment. But for this amount of money, no way.
Check fraud (interception) is more common than you'd think. It's investigated by the Postal Inspection Service. For a large back-pay check, it's likely that someone in a PC tipped an intermediary off that there was a large check coming. That intermediary paid someone to check the mailbox (Amazon EEs would be perfect for this) and pluck the check when it arrived. Plucker passed the check to the intermediary and got a bonus. Intermediary cashed the check under false pretenses. That's the typical MO.
Lots of people affected by the GPO side of the Fairness Act didn't have direct deposit on their records.
They don't have to.
The Treasury Department has rarely ever bothered to prosecute most check fraud, at least in the last 30 years anyway, as the financial losses incurred rarely exceed the financial limits imposed in the prosecutorial guidelines.
It is forgery of a government check, which is a federal felony crime. So, it is a federal government issue.
For large checks like this, it takes forever for Treasury to make a forgery determination. And, that was before Trump II ran off all those employees from the agency.
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