If Social Security calls requesting personal information, it might be smart to verify who you are talking to!

(Nice Photo courtesy of Long N at Flickr)

If you get an unsolicited call from an "alleged" Social Security employee, it might be wise to verify (independently), who is calling you. Of course -- you should do this by using a number obtained from a legitimate source, and not one pointed to by the person calling -- who might be trying to steal by using your good name.

The Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration recently reported:

Over the past several months, the Office of the Inspector General has received a number of reports relating circumstances where individuals have been contacted by someone pretending to be an SSA employee. The caller identifies himself/herself as an SSA employee and may even provide a toll-free number as a point of contact. The caller generally asks for personal identifying information such as:

• Social Security Number
  


• Date of Birth
  


• Mother's maiden name
  


• Bank account information
  


• Other financial account information
  

The impersonator may state that "the SSA computers are down" or may refer to enrollment in the Medicare prescription drug program. The intent of the impersonator is to steal your identity and/or funds from your bank accounts.


It is possible that an SSA employee may contact you to follow-up on a previous application for benefits, application for a subsidy for the Medicare Part D program, or to follow-up on business you have initiated with SSA. If you are unsure as to the authenticity of someone who claims to be an SSA employee, please call SSA's
toll-free number: 1-800-772-1213 to verify the reason for the contact and the person's identity.

More information on this particular scam can be viewed on the link provided to the original press release below.


I always recommend reporting fraud attempts. At a minimum, it helps get the word out and you never know when it will lead to someone getting caught.

Information about the OIG's fraud hotline can be obtained from the Reporting Fraud section of the OIG's website.

Link to SSA press release, here.

Scams using the telephone are nothing new, but with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology, the frequency with which they are being seen is increasing. The reason for this is that VoIP has made calling long distance cheap.


Telephone scams using VoIP are often referred to as "vishing." If you are interested in more information on this type of scam, I've written some other posts, which can be seen, here.


Impersonating official agencies is nothing new, either. In the recent past, the IRS, FBI, DOJ, FTC and even Interpol have all been spoofed (impersonated) as part of a fraud scheme involving vishing, or it's sister scam, phishing.

How much of our Social Security money is benefiting former illegal aliens in Mexico?

With predictions that Social Security might be bankrupt before many of us ever receive any benefits, money potentially being given to people not entitled to it, bothers some people.

Dr. Jerome R. Corsi (WorldNetDaily.com) just did a very eye-opening analysis of the problem, where he states:

Amid the U.S. government's acknowledgment of rampant document and benefit fraud, the Federal Reserve is wiring 26,000 Social Security payments every month to Mexicans south of the border.

Officials with the Federal Reserve and Social Security Administration insist payments are not going to illegal aliens but admit they cannot be certain. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has launched a new task force to address the "growing" problem of benefit fraud, including in the Social Security Administration.

I like the official statement that no payments are going to illegal aliens, but they can't be certain?It seems to me that if they were certain, they might HAVE do SOMETHING about it.

I sometimes like to examine the money trail, which is what anyone wanting to determine fraud should follow, and according to the article:

According to the Federal Reserve, in 2005 the amount of funds transferred to Mexico reached more than $30 billion, up from $16.6 billion in 2004. The remittance market to Mexico has experienced double-digit growth in recent years.

Even scarier, was what is termed a totalization agreement with Mexico, that Social Security refused to release until forced to by an advocate group for senior citizens:

As WND previously reported, after refusing to release the document for three and a half years, the Social Security Administration in January finally made public a totalization agreement that "would allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund."

The disclosure was forced by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the TREA Senior Citizens League, a non-partisan seniors advocacy group.

This hasn't been signed into effect by President Bush, but it could be done without congressional approval.

Dr. Corsi sums up this analysis using factual data from the GAO:

In September 2003, the U.S. General Accounting Office estimated a Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico would cost $78 million in the first year and would grow to $650 billion (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050.

The GAO admitted even this estimate was low given that the totalization agreement provides an additional incentive for millions more Mexicans to enter and work in the United States.

Dr. Corsi's highly interesting analysis (I highly recommend reading the entire article), here.

So far as the officials, who aren't certain if fraud is occurring, they might want to consider the amount of benefits fraud, recently uncovered in the Katrina and Rita hurricanes. Initially, officials seemed to be in denial (not certain) about how much of it happened there, also. After the GAO did a little digging, they seemed to find quite a bit of it - and rumor has it - they aren't finished finding all of it.

Benefit fraud is a huge problem, and it costs us all in the form of higher taxes. It also takes away from the funds available to pay honest people, who are entitled to receive them.

Here is another post, I wrote about the scope of this problem in a limited area (Southern California):

Los Angeles Grand Jury Calls Child Care Program an ATM for Thieves

The official ICE press release about the government task force looking into this problem can be seen, here.

Social Security employee causing $2.5 million in credit card fraud reveals how easily information is stolen from within

Recently, I blogged about a former IRS employee, who committed $330,000 of retail refund fraud (basically shoplifting) in nine states. This morning, I read about a former Social Security Administration employee, who caused an alleged $2.5 million in credit card fraud by providing detailed information on victims to an external identity thief.

Sharon Gaudin at Information Week writes:

The indictment alleges that Batiste conspired with her cohort Craig Harris and others by agreeing to access the Social Security Administration's computer system to run search queries for Harris.

Harris, a 50-year-old Los Angeles resident, pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and unlawful possession of a means of identification. Harris, who faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 17.

The government contends that Harris would give Batiste some identifying piece of information about someone -- either a name or Social Security number -- and Batiste would then query the government system to pull up enough other identifying information to put the person's identity at risk.

Information Week article, here.

According to the article, the arrest was the result of the work of the Economic Crimes Task Force, which includes both federal and local assets in Southern California.

Last October, I wrote about a task force in Southern California responsible for catching a lot of insider related (employee) identity theft. My post is still up, but the link to the LA Times article is now down and nothing else can be found about it on Google.

I suppose insider problems aren't as newsworthy as large scale data-breaches, involving highly skilled hackers. The reason for this might be that they are embarrassing to the organization involved, and they don't help sell expensive (computer related) security fixes.

In fact, a trusted insider, can normally get past all the above referenced security fixes, simply because they have access.

And if you think about it, retail, restaurant and clerical employees have access to a lot of information. It's a lot easier to bribe, or even place a person inside an organization to steal information than hack it from the outside.

Trust me, it's going on in the business (and it appears) civil service worlds, daily.

Perhaps, all the experts, should take a closer look at this problem and how to control it.

Here's a previous post, I wrote on this subject, where the Secret Service is doing this:

Secret Service is Studying the Problem from Within

LA County has a hot line to report government employees committing fraud. The information to contact it can be found, here.

The FBI has also set up a place, where anyone can report public corruption, here.

A lot of large companies have a dedicated hot line to report internal problems, or you can ask to speak to someone in their security department. Smaller businesses normally don't have these resources, but most owners would be highly interested if someone working for them was stealing.

It's not good for business!

In some instances (not all), there are financial incentives for reporting insider dishonesty.

If you are worried about safety issues, I always recommending doing this, anonymously.