harllee
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I have been at my local Social Security office all afternoon (there was quite a wait to speak to someone) and I have found out that I am the victim of Social Security fraud/identity theft. I think someone else had this problem on the Forums earlier and there was a thread but I cannot find it so I will start a new thread.
I had been receiving Social Security on my husband's account and was deferring my own SS payments until age 70. So today I get a letter from SS saying that I had changed to my own payments and they were sending me a lump sum payment of over $3,000 a couple of days ago. I had not made any such request. I got on my online SS account and found that the my banking info for payments had been changed to "GO Bank", something I had never heard of.
I immediately went to my local SS office and they are reversing everything. They said this is a fraud problem that is rampant for Social Security, they are seeing many, many cases. I asked how this could happen and I never got a straight answer. I don't think it could have happened through my online account because to log in to that account I receive a text number. The person I talked to at the local SS office ( who was very helpful) said it should have never of happened because before this change was made I should have been called by SS but I was not.
Has this happened to anyone else? While the person at the SS office did not come out and say this, several things she said led me to believe it may be an inside job.
To prevent this from happening again, a lock is being put on my online account so it can not be used anymore (same thing for my husband's account) but since I do not think this was done through my online account, a lock may not help. Since I will have a lock, I will have to go to the SS Office in person for any changes in the future.
I have had all my credit agency accounts frozen for many years. I will check my credit reports to just be sure there are no problems there. Any thing else I should do?
Everyone may want to go to their online SS accounts and check to be sure their banking information has not been changed or that there is not anything else unusual.
I had been receiving Social Security on my husband's account and was deferring my own SS payments until age 70. So today I get a letter from SS saying that I had changed to my own payments and they were sending me a lump sum payment of over $3,000 a couple of days ago. I had not made any such request. I got on my online SS account and found that the my banking info for payments had been changed to "GO Bank", something I had never heard of.
I immediately went to my local SS office and they are reversing everything. They said this is a fraud problem that is rampant for Social Security, they are seeing many, many cases. I asked how this could happen and I never got a straight answer. I don't think it could have happened through my online account because to log in to that account I receive a text number. The person I talked to at the local SS office ( who was very helpful) said it should have never of happened because before this change was made I should have been called by SS but I was not.
Has this happened to anyone else? While the person at the SS office did not come out and say this, several things she said led me to believe it may be an inside job.
To prevent this from happening again, a lock is being put on my online account so it can not be used anymore (same thing for my husband's account) but since I do not think this was done through my online account, a lock may not help. Since I will have a lock, I will have to go to the SS Office in person for any changes in the future.
I have had all my credit agency accounts frozen for many years. I will check my credit reports to just be sure there are no problems there. Any thing else I should do?
Everyone may want to go to their online SS accounts and check to be sure their banking information has not been changed or that there is not anything else unusual.