Four Years In Slammer For Former SSA Employee

     From a press release:

Eric Lemoyne Willis, 46, of West Sacramento, was sentenced today to four years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States, theft of government property, and aggravated identity theft, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, Willis and co-defendants, Darron Dimitri Ross, 36, of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Joshua Bilal George, 39, of San Diego, conspired to steal public money from the Social Security Administration (SSA). Willis worked as an SSA Operations Supervisor in Sacramento and Lodi from 2015 until his departure in January 2018. During this timeframe, Willis used his authority as an SSA employee to access the confidential Social Security records of numerous Social Security beneficiaries. These records contained personally identifiable information (PII) including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, account numbers, family information, and benefit payment amounts. Willis would seek out PII for beneficiaries who used direct deposit for payment of large benefits. Willis then gave this PII to Ross who resided in North Carolina.

Ross and George’s roles in these crimes included calling numerous SSA field offices across the country and using the stolen PII to impersonate the beneficiaries. Ross also opened at least 44 online bank accounts under fraudulent identities to receive diverted SSA benefit payments. If Ross succeeded in convincing an SSA representative that he was the beneficiary, he would request that the beneficiary’s direct deposit account be changed to one of the conspirators’ fraudulent accounts. ...

It's Brutal

     From WFTS in Tampa Bay:

...  Brett Chamberlin's letters from the Social Security Administration have piled up.

“They send me letters saying, you didn’t come for your interview. I didn’t have an interview. You didn’t submit the information we requested. You didn’t request any information,” Chamberlin said.

He has been going back and forth with the SSA office since 2017, when he was first diagnosed with Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) and Giant Cell Arteritis. ...

Chamberlin depends on high flow oxygen 100% of the time and uses a wheelchair to get around. He tells ABC Action News he was declared disabled by his doctor but has been denied Social Security disability. ...

“We’re not able to survive. I have sold everything that I owned of any value with the exception of my wedding ring,” Chamberlin said. ...

Processing Times Continue To Creep Up Even Though OHO Receipts Continue To Drop

     A report from Social Security on operations at its Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).

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Getting There At 6:00 AM Isn't Early Enough

     From WESH:

Long lines were reported at the Orlando Social Security Office Wednesday.

One woman told WESH 2 she arrived at 6 a.m. ahead of the office opening at 9 a.m. As of 11:30 a.m., she was still waiting and it was her second day in line. She said she and her dad came yesterday morning at 7a.m. and was home because the lines were too long.

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Another woman said she came because the office misspelled her daughter’s name and they told her to come in person. ...

    There's a similar piece on another local station in Orlando.

Already Waiting Outside Social Security Field Office At 5:51 AM

Photo taken at 5:51 AM

     From Spectrum News:

The long lines outside Orlando's Social Security office have continued early Wednesday morning.

Dozens of Central Florida residents in search of Social Security services waited hours outside the Orlando Social Security office under the hot Florida sun Tuesday afternoon.

Some arrived as early as 2:00 a.m. Wednesday to try to guarantee an appointment this morning. The office opens at 9 a.m. ...

In a statement, a Social Security Administration spokesperson advised residents to book appointments over the phone or online to avoid waiting in lines.

However, people who waited in line told Spectrum News 13 that they tried, but were not able to book an appointment using those services.

Happy 4th Of July!

 

Retirement Trends

    From Retirement Trends in United States, 2000-2022, a report by the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress.

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Social Security Wants To Learn From A Mediocre NFL Team

     From Federal News Network:

The Baltimore Ravens football team may be better known for its winning ways on the field and its rabid fans in the stands.

But the Social Security Administration turned to the NFL team because of its prowess in using data to drive customer experience decisions. It also didn’t hurt that SSA headquarters is located in Baltimore County, Maryland, and many of the staff are big fans of the team.

Patrick Newbold, the assistant deputy commissioner and deputy chief information officer at SSA, said the Ravens are known for providing a great customer experience for their fans so it just made sense that the agency would reach out.

“One of the questions we asked the Baltimore Ravens was how business intelligence analytics changed their service delivery model?” Newbold said on Ask the CIO. “The Ravens shared an excellent use case with us on how data was able to challenge one of their assumptions on fan demographics. Early on, when they started to aggregate that data, that data disproved assumptions they had about their season ticket holders. Their fans were a lot younger than the marketing assumed. ...

The Ravens brought their chief data officer or equivalent position to the table to meet with executives from SSA’s CIO, CDO and mission offices. ...

 “We want to use data to monitor and improve the way we do business and services, and deliver our services to our citizens,” Newbold said. “We also shared several challenges. One was the importance of data collection. The Baltimore Ravens leverage NFL-wide data as well as their Baltimore Ravens-specific data. They use that data to inform decisions. We, at SSA, want to create a primary source of SSA-wide data that is beyond assumptions and that supports that ad hoc, cross-cutting capability to do some data analytics. While we are completely different organizations, we have the same goals and mission desire when it comes to how we can use data to really inform the way we want to move forward.” ...

“We also met with a couple of thought leaders since June, the former General Motors CIO Ralph Szygenda and the former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti,” he said. “We take these conversations and we’ve highlighted about three important lessons learned from these conversations, and we are baking those into our strategy. They are around governance, data and culture.” ...

    Learning from the experiences of others is a good idea but this still sounds weird.