Chattering-Magpie-blog
Why I hate the SSA.
My mother, in a brief moment of stubborn lucidity, managed to convince Social Security that she was perfectly capable of managing her own affairs and would they please direct deposit her SS payments to her bank.
Only problem was the home address she gave SSA was different from what the bank had for her. Her checks bounced back to SSA, and she never got her payments.
I didn’t find this out until going through her stuff after she passed.
I filed a claim with SSA for underpayment over a year ago. At least once a month I have called my local SSA office to enquire as to the status of the claim. It doesn’t move much, according to my notes. At one point it went into a backlog. Another time it was on someone’s desk.
Only this last call did the local SSA lady tell me that my brother would also have to file a claim. And because of the amount involved, we would have to provide our original birth certificates.
First I’ve heard of it. I had never been contacted by SSA to request additional documentation.
Finally yesterday I had a call on my home answering machine to call SSA.
Today I called the number and immediately plunged into voicemail hell. None of their options, which I had to listen to carefully because they have changed, applied. Every option to speak to an operator led to another byzantine layer of automated options.
When I finally hit on the option that rang through, the automated system kindly informed me that the person at extension 4981 is not available.
Oh I left a message alright. It was not happy nor pleasant.
