User Fee To $123

      Social Security is publishing the full list of cost of living adjustments in the Federal Register on Monday. You can read the list today. One that is of particular interest to some readers of this blog is the maximum user fee charged to attorneys representing Social Security claimants. Beginning in December it will be $123.

Après Moi Le Déluge

      From Government Executive:

…  Shares in Fiserv, a financial technology company that processes credit and debit card payments on behalf of businesses and financial institutions, fell more than 40%, or $30 billion in market value, on Wednesday, after CEO Mike Lyons withdrew earnings forecasts originally issued by his predecessor, Bisignano. The stock price fell another 7.1% Thursday.

According to trade publication PaymentsDive, Lyons said that Bisignano’s earnings targets “would have been objectively difficult to achieve, even with the right investment and strong execution.” But instead, Fiserv had in recent years deferred needed investments and cut costs in pursuit of shoring up short-term profit margins. …

Happy Halloween

 

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Disability Determination Slowing Down Due To Government Shutdown

     I'm hearing from North Carolina Disability Determination Services (DDS) that they have no more funds to pay for consultative medical examinations and are having some trouble paying for those which have already been held. They also lack funds to obtain existing medical records on clients. These problems will progressively slow disability determinations in this state. I imagine that the circumstances are much the same in other states.

The Commissioner Has A Serious Problem Related To The Company He Used To Run

      From Financial Advisor:

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s move into government couldn’t have been better timed, helping the former Fiserv Inc. chief avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from the company’s plunging stock price. 

After the former Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive was tapped by President Donald Trump this year to lead the SSA, he agreed to resign from Fiserv and divest his stake, including common stock, options, restricted stock units and performance equity grants. Bisignano, 66, was also named CEO of the Internal Revenue Service earlier this month. 

Following his resignation, the restricted stock and a portion of the performance grants vested, giving him more than 3.2 million Fiserv shares worth roughly $594 million when he was confirmed to his role in May.  

Bisignano sold Fiserv stock between May 16 and July 1, according to ethics filings. Based on the average share price during the period, the shares would have fetched roughly $530 million. He later confirmed in a filing that he had completed the divestment.  

The same shares today are worth just $229 million—meaning that selling earlier in the year avoided losses of about $300 million. 

Accepting the government role gave Bisignano another valuable perk. In May, he was granted a certificate of divestiture, deferring capital gains tax on the Fiserv sales provided he invested the proceeds in approved assets such as Treasury bills or broadly-based mutual funds. 

Bisignano didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. 

More than half of Bisignano’s potential losses would have come Wednesday, when the payment company’s shares suffered a record plunge of more than 40% after it slashed its full-year earnings outlook and delivered third-quarter results well short of analysts’ estimates. 

     Did the serious problems at Fiserv only begin AFTER Bisignano left? That seems unlikely on the face of it. Was Bisignano aware of the problems BEFORE he left? That seems likely. If he knew of major problems, why hadn’t he told investors?  If he knew, why was he selling stock based upon inside information? 

     The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would ordinarily investigate this sort of thing but this is the Trump Administration. Nobody in the Trump Administration gets investigated. However, they can’t stop shareholder litigation and I would expect that soon. Bisignano will have to answer questions under oath. 

     By the way, Bisignano needs two lawyers, one for the possible securities litigation and the other for possible criminal charges. Trump won’t be in office forever. Unless he gets a pardon, Bisignano could face criminal charges later. 

     This seems like it could be  a serious distraction to a man with two jobs.

      Update: The litigation has already begun.

     Further Update: Here’s an explanation of what is being alleged:

… Fiserv faces a federal securities class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York that accuses the company of inflating growth figures for its Clover payments platform. The complaint alleges Fiserv forced merchants on its older and more affordable Payeezy system to move to Clover while claiming that growth came from new customers. Those migrations allegedly artificially boosted short-term revenue and transaction volumes forecasts which in turn hid slowing organic expansion. When many merchants decided to switch to lower-cost rivals such as Square and Toast, Clover’s performance faltered. According to the lawsuit, former CEO Frank Bisignano told investors in 2023 that 90% of Clover’s revenue growth would come from new merchants and just 10% from existing clients, even as the company moved roughly 200,000 Payeezy merchants to Clover through mid-2024. That shift helped lift Clover’s 2024 revenue to $2.7 billion on $310 billion in gross payment volume, but by early 2025, gross payment volume growth slowed to 8%, down from 14%-17% the year before. …

Read About The Wonderful Work Bisignano Is Doing

       There’s a Bisignano puff piece in the Washington Examiner, I suppose that it will please the paid shills commenting here. Does anyone, even on the right, take the Washington Examiner seriously. It’s self consciously a propaganda outlet. No, it’s not a right wing equivalent of the Post. It’s almost a caricature.

     By the way, I don’t mean to demean Bisignano too much. In his own way, he’s probably trying to be a good guy. It’s just that he’s working in a horrifyingly incompetent and dishonest Administration that barely hides its contempt for Social Security. He’s far more devoted to puffing up Trump than running a competent agency. I don’t understand why anyone thinks Trump is deserving of blind loyalty but Bisignano is not alone.

Terrible Service

From the Washington Post: 

Hours-long wait times. Endless looping music. Useless robot messages. 

Millions of seniors and disabled people call Social Security’s 1-800 number every month. What they experience is often maddening. … 

The Trump administration has said it is improving Social Security customer service and dramatically cutting wait times to build on a phone experience that callers have complained about even before Trump. But the agency’s public reporting doesn’t count the time people wait for callbacks from humans, and nearly three dozen callers who spoke with The Washington Post or let a reporter join their calls said their experiences have not matched the agency’s claims. … 

 In response to this story’s findings, SSA spokesman Barton Mackey said that “there have been significant advancements in customer service” over the past five months. “Cherry-picked instances may meet the goal of a preconceived, negative narrative, but they do not accurately reflect the experiences a vast majority of Americans have when interacting with SSA,” he said in a statement. … 

Once callers get their estimated wait time, they might get offered a callback. The agency says 19.3 million calls were handled by callbacks this year, up from 6.8 million the previous year when the option was first introduced.## One Social Security worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the feature appeared helpful at first but has since deteriorated because of understaffing. Many of those she has called back don’t answer the phone because it has been hours or even weeks since their initial call, she said. ...

     The article gives many concrete examples of the difficulties that callers face. 

How Well Does AI Answer The Phone?

      From Grada3:

… When Social Security beneficiaries call the SSA’s helpline, they’re greeted by a friendly virtual voice that says, “How can I help you today?”. So now, instead of waiting on the telephone line for a human assistant, the bot tries to understand what you are asking and will direct you to assistance.

This “digital-first” strategy appears to be a significant advancement on paper as it uses artificial intelligence to answer basic enquiries, free up human personnel, and provide assistance more quickly. However, the experience has not been easy for a lot of callers.  …

Even though this was meant to improve the system, there are many Americans who are struggling to adapt to the new system.

1. Sometimes, the AI might misunderstand you

There are many callers who reported that the bot sometimes doesn’t understand the basic questions or even sends them to the wrong department for help.

2. Fewer Humans Are Available to Help

The SSA has been reducing the number of staff in local field offices and sometimes if the bot can’t help, it might take a fairly long time to reach an actual person.

3. Complex Problems Still Need Real People

The SSA deals with personal and complex issues and sometimes this requires human assistance instead of help from a bot. …