Scope Of The Unauthorized Direct Deposit Change Problem

      From Direct Deposit Changes by Social Security Administration 800-number Staff, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

... The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a national 800-number that handles calls from the public. Before April 14, 2025, staff could change an individual’s direct deposit over the telephone by asking the caller to confirm certain personally identifiable information. We identified 3,109 beneficiaries who had direct deposit changes by 800-number staff from October through December 2023, followed by a non-receipt of benefits, followed by another direct deposit change. We randomly selected 200 beneficiaries and quantified the amount of benefits misdirected because of unauthorized direct deposit changes. We also identified 74,916 beneficiaries who had direct deposit changes initiated by 800-number staff from October 1 to 30, 2024. We randomly selected 225 beneficiaries and listened to recorded calls to determine whether SSA employees appropriately verified caller identities before changing beneficiaries’ direct deposit information.

Results
Social Security beneficiaries did not always authorize direct deposit changes initiated by 800-number staff. We estimated $2.2 million for approximately 1,197 beneficiaries had been misdirected because of unauthorized direct deposit changes from October through December 2023. As of April 2025, we estimated SSA had not recovered approximately $2 million of the $2.2 million. ...

It's A Vicious World Out There

     There's an interesting video floating about the interwebs saying that Social Security's Commissioner is wearing shirts monogrammed with the initials FJB which they say stands for F*** Joe Biden. He does wear shirts with that monogram but the video is completely misleading since FJB happens to be the Commissioner's own initials. 

     While we’re talking about the Commissioner’s apparel, I’ve seen pictures of him wearing kiltee loafers. I don’t think I’ve seen those on many other men in a long time. I wouldn’t have thought they still made them.

IT Acquisition Issues

      From Fedscoop:

 Social Security Administration is facing issues tied to IT acquisition, having fallen behind on training to get contracting officers up to speed on some areas of tech procurement, a new Government Accountability Office report found.

According to the congressional watchdog, the SSA’s senior-level contracting officers have “deficiencies” when it comes to acquisition practices involving IT, and an existing agency training plan to address those shortcomings hasn’t been updated since 2019.

The lackluster workforce expertise in this area is especially problematic for the agency, given that it obligated at least $1.4 billion annually on IT acquisitions from fiscal years 2020 through 2024, according to the GAO. …

Officials in SSA’s IT office said the agency has “halted” its hiring efforts to comply with the Trump administration’s EOs and guidance, and “it plans to use reduction-in-force actions to achieve its targeted workforce number.” Because of RIF plans and cost-reduction measures, SSA officials acknowledged to GAO that such “reorganization efforts could affect the IT acquisition workforce.”  …

Major Frustration

 

    An email from a legal assistant at my law firm to others in the firm:

Is anyone else feeling the major frustration of attempting to get tasks done and not getting very far because the DO’s new phone system?

After waiting on hold for anywhere between 50-90 mins on a regular basis, I often get hung up on or the “this isn’t our jurisdiction” response and cannot get any assistance.

Also experiencing some frustration with the cases that are filed online as now Baltimore is “helping” but really just dropping the ball on these as well.

Is there anything that can be done other than getting in touch with our useless congressperson?

    No one had a response other than to say basically, "Yeah, I'm facing the same situation." 

A Poll

 

online polls

Still Standing After All These Years

     From Tom Margenau, a retired Social Security employee with a syndicated column:

… I remember way back in 1973 when I was sent out as a relatively new Social Security Administration spokesperson to deliver my first speech on the topic. And hardly before I had a chance to introduce myself, some guy in the audience who appeared to be around 40 years old jumped up and said, “I don’t know why we should listen to anything you have to say. We all know Social Security will go belly up long before we ever have a chance to collect a dime out of the system!” …

Well, of course, if that guy is still alive, he’d be pushing 90 now and would have been collecting many millions of dimes in the form of Social Security checks, month in and month out, for about 30 years now.  …

That story always reminds me of something I learned from one of my mentors when I started working for the Social Security Administration. He was a fairly high-placed official within the agency who started working for the SSA shortly after it was created in 1936. And he told me that way back then, many members of the public were telling him that the Social Security program was doomed to failure. …

More Oversight For Security Guards

     From Government Executive:

The House on Monday passed legislation that responds to issues flagged by watchdogs about oversight of contract security guards at federal buildings. 

The Personnel Oversight and Shift Tracking Act of 2025 (H.R. 3425), approved 402-0, would require the Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for guarding more than 8,500 facilities [including Social Security offices], to “establish processes to strengthen oversight, performance and accountability of contract security personnel.” 

Specifically, it would task FPS with developing a standardized process for collecting and analyzing the results of covert security tests when the employees don’t know that they’re being evaluated and mandating contract security companies to provide corrective training to any personnel who fail such tests. 

 The Government Accountability Office in March reported that contract guards who screen individuals entering federal buildings failed to detect prohibited items (e.g. baton, pepper spray) in about half of covert tests that its investigators conducted. GAO also analysed nearly 500 such evaluations performed by FPS between 2020 and 2023 and found that roughly half of the time the contract security did not notice the prohibited item. ...

    Let's be safe but let's not get carried away. I've met guards who did everything but a cavity search. 

4th Circuit Hears DOGE Case En Banc After SCOTUS Leaves Them In A Quandry

      From Courthouse News Service:

An en banc Fourth Circuit debated the role of appellate courts during a testy hearing Thursday concerning an attempt to stop Department of Government Efficiency employees from accessing Social Security data.

A federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing the systems in March, questioning why officials needed large quantities of sensitive information on Social Security recipients. The Fourth Circuit denied the government’s attempt to stay the injunction ruling on the side of labor unions and retirees.

“The crux of this case and the crux of plaintiffs’ position is that government cannot grant itself an all-access pass to confidential, sensitive information merely by boldly asserting the word ’need’ or even the word ‘fraud,’” attorney Alethea Swift of the Democracy Forward Foundation, representing the unions, said.

The Supreme Court issued a June order reversing the Fourth Circuit’s conclusion and implemented a stay on a 6-3 vote. The high court majority said President Donald Trump was likely to succeed in the litigation and would be injured if the justices didn’t intervene, but did not issue an opinion to explain their reasoning.

Eye rolls and sighs dominated the day as the judges fiercely debated their role at this juncture, with Republican-appointed judges arguing the court should simply affirm the Supreme Court’s decision. In contrast, Democrat-appointed judges viewed the appellate court’s role as one requiring deeper analysis. …

     Here’s another report on the oral argument.