Central Offices Closed By Snowstorm

     Social Security's central offices in the Baltimore-Washington area are closed today because of a large snowstorm.

Why Did It Take Four Trips To A Field Office To Straighten This Out?

     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.

Was This Data Sharing Legal?

     From the Los Angeles Times:

A group of former students defrauded by for-profit colleges is alleging in court that the Education Department illegally obtained and used their Social Security data to limit their student loan relief.

The Education Department announced in December that it will start granting some former students at the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges only partial federal student loan forgiveness, in part to save taxpayers' money. The agency said it will use students' earnings data to determine how much of their loans to forgive. 

Some students have already received notices from the department that only 50% or less of their loan will be wiped out.

A motion filed by several former Corinthian students over the weekend alleges that the Education Department obtained the earnings figures from the Social Security Administration in violation of several laws as well as the Constitution. Attorneys with the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University representing the students say the agency should have turned to the students for their data and should have notified them of its actions in order to give them a chance to react. ...

The Social Security Administration did not reply to requests for comment.

The Obama administration went hard after for-profit colleges accused of fraud, closing down Corinthian and other major chains and tightening regulations for those schools. The administration also spent $550 million to fully forgive student loans for tens of thousands of students.

[Secretary of Education Betsy] DeVos has said the Obama regulations were unfair and is writing new ones. She has said her new system of partial loan forgiveness will be fairer to students and taxpayers.

     I think these students ought to get full relief but that's not my point here. There are laws concerning inter-agency data releases. I'm no expert on them but this data release doesn't sound kosher.

Spring Thaw At Hand?

     I have a question for those of you on the inside. Has Social Security started authorizing more overtime since the budget deal was finalized last month? For that matter, in the absence of a Commissioner, is there anyone to authorize it? It seemed clear that very little overtime had been authorized from the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1, 2017 until the budget deal last month. The agency had reason to fear that its appropriation would be cut below the previous year's level. Since the budget deal, it's clear there won't be a cut. It now seems likely that the agency will get a budget boost although how much is up in the air. It may be wishful thinking but I think I've seen a few signs in the last month that a Spring thaw might have started, that a little more OT is being authorized. It's certainly needed, or at least I think I'm seeing things getting a little less bad than it has been these past six months.

More Conn Cases But The Nexus Is Getting A Little Strained

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     It may not be clear from this memo but many, perhaps most, of the claimants involved here weren't even Eric Conn's clients but the clients of one or more other attorneys who worked with Conn who haven't themselves been accused of misconduct.

Telephone Phishing Scheme

     From KMBZ:

A phone scam is making the rounds again.

Greenwood police say they've heard from residents that they've gotten calls from someone claiming to be from the Social Security Administration.  

This is how the scam works: They leave a message on your voicemail, claiming your social security number has been suspended and asking that you return the call and speak with a paralegal. 

46 Months For Former Social Security Employee

     From Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

Sharon Ramos, age 56, of South Bend, Indiana was sentenced before District Court Judge Jon E. DeGuilio for ten counts of making false entries in government records, two counts of conversion of government money, and one count of wire fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II.

Ramos, convicted after a four-day jury trial in November 2017, was sentenced to 46 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay restitution to the Social Security Administration in the amount of $550,383.66.

According to testimony during the trial, from approximately January 2008 and continuing until around December 2013, Ramos devised a scheme to defraud the Social Security Administration by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.  Ramos, then an employee of the Social Security Administration, made numerous false and fictitious representations in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) accounts of numerous SSI claimants.  These improper entries in the accounts resulted in numerous SSI claimants obtaining payments they were not eligible to receive.  As a result, Ramos fraudulently converted money belonging to the Social Security Administration. ...

When Will The Budget Drama End?

     The federal government is operating on a Continuing Resolution (CR) that funds government operations only through next Friday, March 23. Unless something is passed before then the entire federal government, including Social Security, will shut down. 

     Congress is working on an omnibus funding bill to fund all of the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year. In more normal times, this is done with a series of bills covering different parts of the federal government. 

     There are still disagreements over the omnibus and some predictions that another short CR will be needed. 

     The current draft or drafts of this bill have not been released to the public. There's no definite sign that Social Security's appropriation is in dispute but we can't be sure. 

     The AARP has just sent a letter to Congressional leaders asking for higher administrative funding so they must think something is still up in the air.