Appellate Decision On Application Of Windfall Offset To Canadian Social Security Benefits

      From the Indiana Lawyer:

A split 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed a grant of summary judgment to the Social Security Administration on Monday in a class-action suit brought by a Canadian woman with dual citizenship who alleged her U.S. Social Security benefits were wrongly reduced based on similar benefits she receives from Canada.

Lorraine Beeler, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, has established nearly 20-year careers in both countries and receives monthly retirement benefits from the Canada Pension Plan, that country’s equivalent to U.S. Social Security. She also worked at jobs on which she paid Social Security taxes in the United States.

Beeler’s earnings in Canada were not subject to Social Security taxes, and her earnings in the United States were not subject to Canada Pension Plan taxes. But Beeler ran into a problem after she alleges her Social Security benefits were wrongly withheld. She then sued the Social Security Administration in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in the class action case of Lorraine Beeler v. Andrew M. Saul, 19-2099. 

There, Beeler asserted that the reduction of her U.S. benefits is a violation of two Social Security provisions: The Windfall Elimination Provision and the U.S.-Canada totalization agreement. The class claims that both the statutory language of the WEP and the terms of the agreement prohibit the reduction of Beeler’s benefits. ...

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals split in affirming the district court’s decision, with the majority concluding the agency correctly ruled that plaintiffs’ Canadian employment was noncovered under the Social Security Act, and thus the provision applied to reduce their Social Security benefits. ...

But Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve dissented from the majority’s opinion, finding that its analysis “rests on an unsupported premise to exclude Beeler’s work from the definition of employment. ...

     I'm a little surprised that we're just now getting litigation on this issue. I suppose the reason there hasn't been litigation is that most of the time the U.S. Social Security Administration cannot apply the offset because it has no knowledge that a claimant is receiving foreign social security benefits.

     By the way, I think it would have been better if this case had not been brought as a class action. When there were more class actions against Social Security than there are now, the practice was to win an individual case and THEN bring the class action in another case with a different named plaintiff so that Social Security could raise nothing other than procedural defenses. Don't put all your eggs in one basket until you have to.

Guilty Plea In $500,000 Telephone Scams

      From a press release:

Husband and wife Mehulkumar Manubhai Patel and Chaitali Dave have pleaded guilty to laundering over $500,000 on behalf of India-based phone scammers.  ...

According to [the U.S. attorney], the charges, and other information presented in court: Criminal India-based call centers defraud U.S. residents, including the elderly, by misleading victims over the telephone utilizing scams such as Social Security and tech support scams.

As part of their Social Security scam, India-based callers pose as federal agents in order to mislead victims into believing their Social Security numbers were involved in crimes.  Callers threatened arrest and the loss of the victims’ assets if the victims did not send money.  The callers directed victims to mail cash to aliases used by other members of the fraud network, including Patel and Dave. ...

That's A Lot Of EEO Complaints

      From a Request for Information recently posted by Social Security:

... The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and modules in support of the agency’s existing Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) enterprise case management solution. ...

Social Security Administration with its 65,000 employees currently processes approximately 1,000 EEO counseling, 500 formal complaints of discrimination, 550 hearings and 300 appeals per year.  A Case Management Information System is required for collection of information on nationwide performance of SSA in counseling, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), investigation, hearings, final agency decisions, appeals and compliance. ...

SSA Employee Sentenced For Taking Bribe

      From a press release:

... Kurt Walter was sentenced in the Northern District of Illinois for accepting a bribe in the course of his official duties as an SSA employee. Walter, who worked as a service representative in the Elgin, Illinois SSA office, received a total of $8,400 to access SSA databases and provide individuals’ earnings information to another defendant in the case, Joshua Hughes, without the individuals’ authorization. Hughes, who operated a process server company and a company providing consumer installment loans, then used the earnings information in wage garnishment actions against those individuals. 

On Wednesday, September 30, Walter was sentenced for his role in the bribery scheme, receiving 2 years of probation. ...

Almost A Caricature Of Republican Priorities

      A press release:

The Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, Gail S. Ennis, announces the addition of four new investigative units to the Cooperative Disability Investigations (CDI) program. CDI is a nationwide joint effort between the Social Security Administration and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to fight disability fraud and save money for taxpayers. The four investigative units recently opened offices in Omaha, Nebraska; Las Vegas, Nevada; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Cheyenne, Wyoming. ...

     Just how much fraud are you expecting to find in New Hampshire and Wyoming? Do they really need their own dedicated offices? And why are you saying this is directed at "disability fraud"? I think that most fraud cases detected at Social Security involve retirement benefits.

     Social Security is closing down field offices which provide service to the public while opening new offices to hunt for fraud even in low population areas. What does that tell us about the priorities contained in Social Security's operating budget?

Requirement To Submit Medical Records Electronically To Go Into Effect Next Month

      The Social Security Administration has posted a notice in the Federal Register that the requirement to submit medical records electronically officially goes into effect on November 4.

A Real Charmer

 

    A Texas man has pleaded guilty to communicating threats after saying he would kill “every black person at the Social Security office” if he didn’t get his benefits. And that’s not all he said. Not by a long shot! 

Four Years For $700,000 Identify Theft

 

    From the Daily Herald of Chicago:

A 42-year-old woman who used to work in the Social Security Administration's Aurora office was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing more than $700,000 in fake benefits.

Federal prosecutors said Anne Aroste, 42, of Montgomery, worked in the federal agency's Aurora field office between 2013 and 2018 and pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

She admitted that she used the identities of dead workers to create new applications for Social Security benefits and used her credentials to approve the applications and funnel the benefits to bank accounts she controlled. ...