The Social Security Administration along with the Senate Special Committee on Aging will further education efforts and develop bills to stop Social Security impersonation scams as it becomes the most reported scam to the committee in 2019 and reduces trust in government officials, according to a Congressional hearing today.
The scam calls have resulted in $38 million of losses to Americans in 2019 alone, which Committee Chair Susan Collins suspects is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Many seniors who are affected by this scam are either too embarrassed to report their loss or don’t even know who to turn to,” said Collins.
The scams usually begin with unsolicited robocalls with numbers falsely claiming to be the Social Security Administration. When answered, callers will usually say that the receiver’s Social Security has been compromised and that the receiver must provide sensitive financial information and transfer thousands of dollars as quickly as possible, said Collins.
The Special Committee on Aging have just released its 2020 fraud book and an additional poster which will be distributed in senior centers. The committee has also written letters to the Social Security Administration and other justice coordinating committees for help, according to Aging Committee ranking member Bob Casey.
“No one from our government will ever make these types of threats,” said Casey. “Con artists and scammers should not be allowed to steal money from our loved ones, nor should they be allowed to steal our confidence in the government itself.”
Citizens are now also wary of phone calls that they receive from actual Social Security employees fearing that it would be a scammer, according to Executive Committee member of the National Council of Social Security Management Association Justin Groshon.
The scams have also led to an increase of call volumes to Social Security offices by 400 to 1000 percent which lasted for almost 22 days in one Main office and prevented legitimate business to occur, according to Groshon.
SSA Commissioner Andrew Saul said that they were not doing enough about the issue at first, and that imposter scams are now “a national problem.”
“At first we were not doing enough to combat these scams – that was short sided,” said Saul. “This really snuck up on us.”
Investigative efforts of the SSA and the Department of Justice led to the filing of temporary restraining orders towards three of five telecommunications companies who facilitated the delivery of millions of scam calls, according to Inspector General of the SSA Gail Ennis.
“I am disgusted that there is an Arizonan who is doing this,” said Senator Martha McSally referring to one of the companies who received the restraining order that was from Arizona.
These companies, known as “gateway carriers,” have been repeatedly notified that they should know customers are using them to conduct fraudulent calls and can help by preventing them from going through, said Ennis.
“They allowed at least hundreds of millions of scam calls into the U.S. telephone system and they earned a lot of money in the process,” said Ennis. “In essence, profiting off scammed victims.”
Ennis said she encourages Congress to impose a law that requires gateway carriers to terminate service to known scammers.
Machelle Andersen, Utah resident and wife of Representative Kyle Andersen, lost her and her husband’s life savings of $150 000 through one of the scam calls. Andersen said she was told her Social Security number had been used to register a car with blood all over it at a crime scene near the Mexican border, set up multiple bank accounts associated with a drug cartel, and that she had to transfer all of her money to a safe off-shore account to protect it.
Andersen said the scammers proceeded to tell her to act normal and not tell anyone about the call since the incident was still under investigation.
“The scammers had me so worked up,” said Andersen. “They told me I had to be convincing or I would be arrested.”
Andersen said the scammers then told her to keep them on the phone when she transferred the money, and that they were watching her every move. A credit union clerk asked why she was transferring so much money abroad, but did not further question her when she said it was for electronics.
Retailers and financial institutions are the last step where fraud can be prevented, said Philadelphia Mayor’s Commission on Aging Executive Director Nora Dowd Eisenhower, and the Stop Senior Scams act works to help banks and wire transfer companies to train their employees to spot scams and stop them, said ranking member Bob Casey who proposed the bill.
The targeting of seniors in these scams could also be because of their isolation and vulnerability, said Eisenhower who also reported that 24 percent of older Philadelphians living alone see friends or relatives less than once a week.
“There is a special place in hell for people who are scamming our veterans and our seniors,” said McSally.
Other bills are also working to introduce improving social security services to the Victims of Identity Theft Act. The bill will provide identity theft victims with a single point of contact within the Social Security Administration when a fraud is committed, said Senator Krysten Siname.
“Rather than ask the victim to retell their traumatic story to multiple employees, this assigned individual will be their trusted navigator across different functions within social security to ensure they’re not fighting these battles alone,” said Siname.
The proposal of the Social Security number to not be used as a form of identification should also be considered, said Ennis, along with trying to restore some of the funds that had been stolen.
Advanced Reporting Times, Spring 2020 