Almost amusing experience with the Social Security Administration

AudiDudi

AudiDudi

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Joined
Jun 10, 2018
Messages
1,272
Background: I don't have a gov login account so can no longer access my Social Security account. A couple years ago I stopped receiving any paper mail from SSA, including no 1099s.

About a month ago, I called SSA to get them to send paper mail. While going through the "verifying I'm really me" portion of the phone call, we hit a snag in that they had the wrong city listed for where I was born. The person I was talking to said I would need to physically go into an SSA office to prove who I was.

Two days ago I had the appt. I got there about 25 minutes early and was seen about 15 minutes early. I had my birth certificate with mewhich clearly showed their information to be incorrect. We figured out that when they converted the paper documents over to digital (it sounded like physical transcribing!) they had used the city listed where my parents lived instead of the actual hospital address which was in a different city/county. The lady then printed out a 1099 for me.

I actually left about 2 minutes before my original appt time. I am wondering how I was able to apply for SS as they must have asked for city of birth to verify ID and my anser would not hav ematchewd their record. Overall, a very pleasant experience.
 
I had a similar experience. When I tried to apply for Medicare online, I got a fairly involved message about problems with previous residences and that I would have to go in person.

Scheduled an appointment - when I was called back (a few minutes early) the agent held up his hand to keep me from talking for a minute as he typed and then said - I was able to read your file and it's fixed. Need anything else?

cool
 
I had a similar experience with the SS office a couple of months ago.

Back in the late 80's my DH and I got married. He has a difficult to spell/pronounce last name. Mine is a piece of cake. So, being young and stupid, I decided to hyphenate our last names thinking if people could at least spell one of them I would be good. The first thing I did was get my SS changed to the hyphenated last names. Unfortunately the DMV couldn't hyphenate a last name on my driver's license so I wound up with my maiden name as my middle name, and married name as my last name. No hyphen. (Even today, specific character limits and formatting rules for special characters like hyphens can't be done in some states). I did my Passport the same way because I figured my passport should probably match my DL. At the time a lawyer friend of mine told me to be consistent but life was busy, I was starting medical school, I didn't have time to fix it **insert more random excuses here** I don't use the hyphenated name anymore - although my medical school diploma and my medical license both have the hyphenated version.

Fast forward 30 years to a couple of months ago and I'm trying to get signed up with ID me and login.gov to access my SS. Neither worked after numerous tries. I tried the verification process via the local post office but that didn't solve the issue. I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was . . .

DH and I went to the SS office without an appointment and waited only 40 minutes. I explained my problem. The representative told me I'd have to call the ID me and login.gov support lines because he couldn't do anything with either of those processes. Disappointed, as I was gathering our stuff to leave, I turned to DH and said "I wish I could go back 30 years and tell myself not to hyphenate my name." To which the representative said "Oh, well I can change your name in our system if that's what you want." Bingo! I showed him a copy of my birth certificate and our marriage license and he changed my name in the SS system to match my DL and Passport. I waited 24 hours and was able to get logged on with both ID me and login.gov. One week later I got my new SS card in the mail.
 
Gremlin said:
I had a similar experience with the SS office a couple of months ago.

Back in the late 80's my DH and I got married. He has a difficult to spell/pronounce last name. Mine is a piece of cake. So, being young and stupid, I decided to hyphenate our last names thinking if people could at least spell one of them I would be good. The first thing I did was get my SS changed to the hyphenated last names. Unfortunately the DMV couldn't hyphenate a last name on my driver's license so I wound up with my maiden name as my middle name, and married name as my last name. No hyphen. (Even today, specific character limits and formatting rules for special characters like hyphens can't be done in some states). I did my Passport the same way because I figured my passport should probably match my DL. At the time a lawyer friend of mine told me to be consistent but life was busy, I was starting medical school, I didn't have time to fix it **insert more random excuses here** I don't use the hyphenated name anymore - although my medical school diploma and my medical license both have the hyphenated version.

Fast forward 30 years to a couple of months ago and I'm trying to get signed up with ID me and login.gov to access my SS. Neither worked after numerous tries. I tried the verification process via the local post office but that didn't solve the issue. I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was . . .

DH and I went to the SS office without an appointment and waited only 40 minutes. I explained my problem. The representative told me I'd have to call the ID me and login.gov support lines because he couldn't do anything with either of those processes. Disappointed, as I was gathering our stuff to leave, I turned to DH and said "I wish I could go back 30 years and tell myself not to hyphenate my name." To which the representative said "Oh, well I can change your name in our system if that's what you want." Bingo! I showed him a copy of my birth certificate and our marriage license and he changed my name in the SS system to match my DL and Passport. I waited 24 hours and was able to get logged on with both ID me and login.gov. One week later I got my new SS card in the mail.
Click to expand...
DW decided to hyphenate her name when we got married rather than take my last name and it has caused us numerous problems over the course of our married life. Whenever she has a difficulty I remind her that she brought it on herself. :)
 
pb4uski said:
Yes, OP will need 1099-SSAs yearly, right?
Click to expand...
I had them print a 1099 - my data in Quicken matches the "official" amounts to the penny. I have no idea why about 3 yrs ago they stopped mailing them. Now they will begin mailing them again.
 
We also had a very pleasant visit. DW's sister (who has a FAMOUS name - thing like Jean Harlow) is in a memory care unit and not doing well. DW wanted to get set up a "Representative Payee" for her sister. Had a bit of a challenge until we visited the office. Had all the docs and the guy took care of it in a few moments. Now DW is able to see EVERYTHING and we get DW's Sisters 1099 easily.
 
My wife uses one middle initial on her Social Security account and driver's license and a different one on her passport. We worry the mismatch may cause a problem someday but don't want to mess with any of the systems. Maybe she can register twice if she has to show ID for voting -- that's a Chicago joke (vote early, vote often).
 
I recommend to women getting married to just make your middle name your maiden last name. So Cledith Nedra Smith marrying Mr. Jones becomes Cledith Smith Jones. No hyphen makes it so much easier. And yes, Cledith is an ancestor I'm researching now, I couldn't resist
 
I had a similar problem twice once with a passport, and social security. My birth certificate said NY,NY. Well I guess over the years the town received its own designation. Both times over the phone they both told me what my real new birthplace was. What was weird was that at 15 when I applied for a SS number nothing was said.
 
I thought the best reason to have an account is for security. A fraudster might be able to redirect direct deposit instructions but the issues I read about were for who had not started SS so when they went to claim benefits were already beingvpaid to a fraudster.
 
jazz4cash said:
I thought the best reason to have an account is for security. A fraudster might be able to redirect direct deposit instructions but the issues I read about were for who had not started SS so when they went to claim benefits were already beingvpaid to a fraudster.
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As I drew spousal for 4 years and now my own for close to 4 years I really don't need to access the account any longer. I opened the acct in 2013 and am done with it.
 
jgrdarrash said:
I recommend to women getting married to just make your middle name your maiden last name. So Cledith Nedra Smith marrying Mr. Jones becomes Cledith Smith Jones. No hyphen makes it so much easier. And yes, Cledith is an ancestor I'm researching now, I couldn't resist
Click to expand...

My sister has been married for about 30 years, and I just learned the other day that she adopted the approach you suggest.

I had thought for about 30 years that her name was - to use your example - Cledith N. Jones. Nope, it's Cledith S. Jones. Who knew? (Not me! :ROFLMAO:)
 
jgrdarrash said:
I recommend to women getting married to just make your middle name your maiden last name. So Cledith Nedra Smith marrying Mr. Jones becomes Cledith Smith Jones. No hyphen makes it so much easier. And yes, Cledith is an ancestor I'm researching now, I couldn't resist
Click to expand...
Or don’t change your name?
 
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