Mike Causey is on vacation this week. While he’s gone, he asked some guest columnists to fill in. Enjoy!

Is the Social Security Administration being overloaded with calls from citizens trying to reach other federal agencies—like the very busy, underfunded IRS?

Is SSA under attack from hackers seeking to divert direct deposit benefits to legitimate beneficiaries?

That’s what’s happening according to an anonymous SSA employee who said he/she’s fed up.  For example:

“Here at SSA, we have a toll free number that was started during the Bill Clinton/Al Gore period. Originally, we were told that the future was the phone.  At first, it was a minor part of our workload and, over time,  it has gradually increased in volume until the Baby Boomers started coming on. Now, you have to understand that the Baby Boomers are the most demanding generation that the world has ever seen because they were given everything from childhood on up. Now the phone volume has become so large that many of our operational employees are on the phone most of the day (this is our benefit authorizer position and when they are answering the phone they are called SPIKES). Since these same benefit authorizers are the ones who do all the manual actions (ones not performed by the computer), this is significantly increasing the processing time for non-phone claimants correspondence. It has reached the point to where we are working cases that are four months old and older.

The people call in for any issue with government (whether it is SSA related or not). They call at tax time wanting to be transferred to IRS because they cannot get through. They call to get zip codes. They call to find out who they need to call. They call with questions like ‘What Obamacare plan should I choose? or why won’t Medicare pay for all of my doctor visits?’ They go halfway through an online application for benefits and forget to save it and forgot their password and do not read the questions and wonder why it does not work. Anyway, you get the picture.  They do not understand that SSA’s main clientele are the old, disabled, and poor and that the more they call, the more of the SPIKES have to go online and then they cannot get to those patiently waiting in line for us to get to their correspondence.  It is the dog chasing its tail.

This is resulting in more and more Congressional inquiries and irate claimants. We are hiring more people than we have in years, but it takes two to three years for a new benefit authorizer to reach the level of expertise to SPIKE effectively. It reminds me of the WWI concept of ‘If you throw enough warm bodies into the trenches, you can win.’ Meanwhile, we are treading water.  They tell us the Internet is going to be the salvation of SSA but fail to realize that many of the Baby Boomers are not as computer savvy as they thought and do the inputs wrong and then call in to see why it did not work.  The phone and Internet have also opened up the trust fund to the hackers. They call with enough information to identify themselves and change the direct deposit on the checks and we never catch it until the real claimant tells us that they did not get their check. The newest trick is to get online and file a SSA claim for another person and supply direct deposit and address information so that the real person does not know checks are going out until they file and we tell them , ‘You have already filed.’  This could be years later after many checks have gone out. Guess who gets to eat the bill for the lost funds (you, the taxpayer). The crooks are always one step ahead of us. Each time we try to reduce the workload by making it easier to use the Internet rather than the phone or an in person call, they are sitting there figuring out a way to get into the SSA piggy bank.

Sorry, it is so long, but I just got carried away.” — Anon SSAer

(Tomorrow: SSA responds!)

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Nearly Useless Factoid:

By Dena Levitz

Dogs never wag their tails when alone, even if they’re excited by something like food. Researchers have found tail-wagging to be a behavior exclusively exhibited when around others.

Source:  AOL

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