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sorry, not really on investing, but it was either here and\or US policy board.
trying less noisy first...

elderly relative received a (real) letter sent jointly from OIG\SSA, but obviously computer generated.
The letter has a number of suspicious assertions and open-ended requests for confidential information; requests commonly seen daily in my email spam box. Laughably, the envelope had a blurb regarding a phone-call only hotline for reporting suspicious fraud.

Beyond the foundational false premise of the letter, what really disturbed me was that this recipient, and many others past 70, would have no idea what was happening and would be puzzled exactly how to respond. A non-response, or inadequate response, would seem to set the stage for any number of penalties and denial of benefits.

I have never seen this type of request before, so maybe it is standard for how the OIG\SSA always communicates.
Very interested how anyone may have responded to something similar, and glad to share more details if anyone is interested.

The letter has a number of suspicious assertions and open-ended requests for confidential information; requests commonly seen daily in my email spam box.

Scam artists have been getting increasingly skilled in their...spoofing...of real entities. This smacks of such a thing.

One response would be to look up the phone number or email/snail mail address of the SSA ombudsman and advise that person and ask for advice, doing the look up on the SSA Web site. The emphasis here is to look up those contact data, not rely on the contact data in the letter. It's important to not respond to the letter itself in any way. I've never had occasion to do that, so I don't have those data available.

Eric Hines

The letter itself seems real, and the response is requested to a verified location :
Social Security Office, 1200 Reverend Abraham Woods Jr Blvd N, Birmingham, Alabama, 35285 United States

below is a rough description of what i consider suspicious CONTENT :

- claim that records need updating regarding a non-existent pension
- without citing a source, they purport a small monthly pension has been received for ~2 decades
- letter did not name which employer\source this non-existent pension came from, much less provide supporting documents
- they do not mention existence of any tax-related pension documents for the entire period (1099, 1040, etc...)
- cited pension date not coincident or correlated with any year of retirement-related event

oig\ssa are requesting the following from recipient :
- Open ended permission to collect data from all former employers
- Official contemporary summaries of pension payment from all former employers via photocopies

perhaps the SS# has been used for pension fraud? certainly a lose-lose scenario for the recipient.

i will be replying pension does not exist, but not complying. letter will indicate suspicious phishing\fraud has been reported to aarp, postal service, and state agencies.

again, the fact elderly are being targeted, will not understand the content, and potentially penalized if not responding should motivate anyone (dem\gop) angry.

I have no advice, but wondering if this is related to all of the access DOGE got to
confidential information. It's not a stretch to think that someone could be selling that info to shady people, just enough for them to sounds credible while they pry for the keys to the vault. Be interesting to see if this type of what sounds like a phishing scam becomes commonplace.

i will be replying pension does not exist....

I wouldn't reply to the letter until I'd talked to/corresponded with someone actually in the SSA office at the phone number/address collected from the SSA Website. I also don't think SSA or its OIG needs permission to verify prior employers. It might, in order to put the recipient on the record as telling the truth or defrauding the SSA, but that seems awfully close to entrapment. This sort of request, and for those "contemporary summaries," smacks of phishing and invalidates the entire letter. The "verified address" would be there only to lend verisimilitude.

Replying to the letter only confirms the recipient's address for future phishing/scam attempts by this person or others to whom the address would be sold to.

Eric Hines

am unclear on how replying to a real OIG\SSA address is an abnormal risk.
i have noticed nothing fishy regarding the origination of the letter...there is nothing to mention on a omsbudsman call regarding 'this letter did not come from OIG\SSA because of typos\barcodes\case#\etc....'

i do not want to risk penalties or suspensions if the letter is ignored. i will reply, via registered mail, that this un-named pension does not exist, so there is no specific information on this pension one can send.
will not be granting permissions of any type, nor sending any documentation.

have dealt with errors from the IRS, it is a huge mistake to speculate what is happening and comment\provide extraneous details in formal communications.
as you say, they should already have access to whatever employer information currently allowed by law, especially 1099-R forms generated from legitimate pensions. so if the latter do exist, i will request OIG\SSA provide it to recipient before further correspondence.

yes, i suspect doge actions, but that will remain speculation.

perhaps the SS# has been used for pension fraud? certainly a lose-lose scenario for the recipient.

Unlikely, IMO. There would be too many "red tape requirements" in order to be able to obtain a pension from any source. So why would a scammer report it to the govt? They would NOT, hence the rational belief it is not pension fraud.

Be sure to scan any/all documents received, including the envelope. If there is a postmark, be careful to scan it carefully and get as much information from the imprint as you can. If there is just a pre-printed postage paid (i.e. not from a postmark made by a postage machine), then the USPS may also be involved. Then things "get fun", shall we way. Postal fraud would be a federal crime. More importantly, USPS has postal scans of most first class mail through its system, so they CAN TRACK IT (from delivery to entry into the USPS system). This is something most scammers do not realize.

Using someone else's SSN happens, and there are established procedures (within SSA) to require the employer AND the employee to "get it right". Nothing gets posted to an account if there is a problem with the SSN, name, etc. Thus, the use of someone else's SSN would trigger an immediate response by the SSA. For a pension, use of the same SSN by two or more people (at the same time) would have to have gone on for years in order to be eligible for a pension. Which means the letter contains numerous KNOWN false claims. IMO, report it to SSA, OIG at SSA, federal DA for their state, state DA for their state, federal white collar crime task force (all levels), and any other law enforcement deemed reasonably connected to this crime.

am unclear on how replying to a real OIG\SSA address is an abnormal risk.
i have noticed nothing fishy regarding the origination of the letter...there is nothing to mention on a omsbudsman call regarding 'this letter did not come from OIG\SSA because of typos\barcodes\case#\etc....'

Scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. One of the big "scam busters" on youtube recently had a video on how even HE had just fallen for a scam.

I recently got a phone call from Bank Of America fraud department w/r/t a possible fradulent charge on one of my 3 BAC credit cards. When I challenged him to prove he was legit, he told me the credit limit and current balance on each of the cards.
I quickly logged on to my account and saw that there was no activity on any of the cards. He had my balances & limits exactly right.

His accent, of course, gave him away. But when I said I thought he was a scammer he yelled "I am trying to help you! Don't you want me to help you?" Which solidified that he was a scammer.


Your default position should be that any unexpected contact asking for information or offering help, be it mail or phone, is a scam.

And, BTW, Social Security Administration has nothing to do with any pension you might have. SS is completely different from pensions and there is no connection.

Just by sending them a letter you might be giving the scammer information that they can use to perpetrate their _actual_ scam on you.

Call your local SS office. They can tell you if there has been anything on your account. Any contact they would have with you would be documented and attached to your SS file.

As others have stated the fraud, spam, phishing attempts are more and more sophisticated. It is sad that people resort to this and can cause naive people and some seniors serious problems.

I had something from Chase a few years ago that seemed very real and they were persistent but everytime I called Chase they knew nothing of it so I gave it up. I even received a letter. I ignored it and years later have never had an issue and I have a bunch of credit cards from Chase.

My uncle is in his 80s, still mentally sharp but not computer savvy. Anyhow somehow someone started paying bills from his bank account and when his statement came (he doesn't do online banking) he found a bunch of withdrawals and then one larger one. I think the smaller ones were around $2,400 in total and the last one was another $2,400 in one transaction. Fortunately his bank has paid all of it back. Unfortunately he was doing a ton of auto bill paying and is spending hours trying to get those resolved/updated. He said my father (passed away in 2021) once told him he did not use auto bill paying (which I think is wise).

I get so many toll collection messages, including one from Arizona, a state that has no tolls.

Another one is someone/something pretending to be Consumer Reports saying my bill is due but the info on it is wrong compared to my actual subscription.

It is just relentless. And fortunately I haven't had to deal with serious medical issues but I've heard billing from those can go on for years.

Hope you figure it all out. Trying to talk to a human is often another difficult process.

Rich

rayt,
1 correction, which is major if it applies.
10s of millions of americans are\were employed (at some period) by gov or nonprofits (schools, hospitals...) with pension plans exempt from SS deductions. that scenario would be the opposite of walled separation.

again, will not be providing permission for anything regardless of how much i assume they already have.

employed (at some period) by gov or nonprofits (schools, hospitals...) with pension plans exempt from SS deductions.

Many are/have been. However, it is documented by the employer (who sends notices, etc) to the beneficiaries. So, paperwork would be received if any income not covered by SSA.

I echo suspicions. It's quite possible that this is another DOGE eff-up. But, were I you, I would make an appointment with the local SS office and go in-person to ask about it.

It's a bit of a hassle, but at least you'll know whether it is legit.

You can also log into your ssa.gov account, and see if there are any messages or other points of concern.

quick update...
received 2 letters from SSA on this, before and after our reply #1 where we suspected phishing entirely.

SSA letter #2 : indicated the query was prompted by recent reform of overcounting income from certain groups that were exempt from SS deductions.

SS letter #3 : indicated information was required regarding a named pension payor, although SSA maintained false assertions regarding dates and payments. no evidence was provide from our reply#1, such as 1099-R that must exist has anyone received such.
this letter ended with a threat of assigning some random amount ($9999) as pension paid were we to ignore.

rather than wasting any more time. we replied with documentation on named payor with actual pension start date and amount.
we also granted permission that they may contact the payor in regards to this matter , by u.s. mail only, so there is a chance some record of potential malfeasance\incompetence survives. and also no data dump into SSA\OIG happens.

there has been no response from any of the groups where we reported letter #1 as phishing fraud, despite that we already admitted the origination of the letter from SSA seems genuine.

(with this behind us, my worries regarding more doge prompted scams have become tertiary)

the recent ICE funding and bounty mandates means that hundreds of extended family members, tax paying u.s. citizens across ~15 states, are all facing low probability but very high consequence of encountering criminal action for MAGA entertainment.

this is the reality of non-gop non-caucasian americans. and no amount of lawn flags and buying trump branded junk can help.

Sent my US passport back to apply for a new one. Was slightly concerned while I didn't have a valid passport.
Could probably find my naturalization papers...maybe. Anyway, surprise-surprise, the new one came within three weeks.
Must still be a big crew at passport processing.

Or if the number of employees is reduced the ones there are rubber stamping everything that passes by them as a form of protest.

We have 1poorlady's naturalization papers in a fire safe. Along with birth certificates (including mine...I had to get a new copy from CA during the process of bringing her over here, because I only had the "hospital" certificate (with the footprints) that apparently isn't legal for BCIS). We also have vehicle titles in the safe, and my Navy discharge papers.

Do you carry your passport with you daily? As I've said elsewhere, most of us couldn't prove citizenship if ICE stopped us...unless we carry our passports.

“ Do you carry your passport with you daily? As I've said elsewhere, most of us couldn't prove citizenship if ICE stopped us...unless we carry our passports.”

I don’t but it’s handy and I figure an ICE grunt would accept it.
Mrs C tells me she has my naturalization papers filed away.

Mrs C tells me she has my naturalization papers filed away.

Might be better just to return to England. Yeah, you have a monarchy that should be extinct by now, but -overall- things seem a bit more sane.

Plus the speak better than we do.

Might be better just to return to England. Yeah, you have a monarchy that should be extinct by now, but -overall- things seem a bit more sane.

There for a couple of weeks last month. Was nice, don't need to move back. Mrs. C wouldn't go for it. I suggested our youngest - high school senior - look at college there, but he's not interested. Likes football too much. Looking at The Ohio State...

Plus the speak better than we do.

Well, I still have that! "I love your accent" - I hear that a lot, even after 30 years.
I tell Mrs. C how lucky she is to live with a sexy British accent. She says I don't have one.

most of us couldn't prove citizenship if ICE stopped us...unless we carry our passports.

As an aside, do US officials accept passport as a definitive proof of citizenship? Most places don't, these days. It is a travel document with a strong correlation to citizenship, but that's not quite the same. As a random example, a non-citizen working in a diplomacy-adjacent job may have a passport. I have a friend in that category, though not in the US.

Though of course if birthright citizenship is overturned in the US, in effect ruling out birth certificates as definitive proof, I'm not exactly sure what would count as proof of citizenship...
Glad it's not me.

Jim

Interesting thoughts.

I have had a similar question about marriage.
Like, if you and your spouse are challenged if that that lady is actually your wife of 20+ years, how can you prove it?
Nobody carries their marriage certificate in their wallet.
Even so, it's just a piece of paper with a couple of names on it. It's not even notarized.
If you could even find that paper anymore, after decades and many moves.
Of course, the wife might know where that paper is. ;-)

There are some heuristics to figure if somebody is most likely a US citizen. Just a quick-and-dirty triage, probably is vs. might be not.
Speaking accent. There are 2 or 3 or 4 accents that are very common.
Depending on age: Where were you when JFK was shot? Where were you on 9/11?
No longer a good question: Where were you on Dec 7?

If you could even find that paper [marriage certificate] anymore, after decades and many moves.

Might want to keep it in a known (to you, to spouse, to responsible child) location. Some institutions, viz., brokerages and banks, want to see proof of spouse-hood to take control of a newly-deceased spouse's account; these institutions accept the marriage certificate as proof enough.

Eric Hines

Was nice, don't need to move back. Mrs. C wouldn't go for it.

Why? England is lovely. It's easy to get around London without a car. If city life isn't for her, there are smaller towns (villages?) in pastoral settings.

If the country is going to hell (which it is), she may have to jump and pull the rip cord. The Tories lost, so there is hope for England. Leaving wouldn't be my first choice, either. But I'd take that over living under an authoritarian regime any day.

Well, I still have that! "I love your accent"

Brits also seem to be more well-spoken, even without the accent. Larger vocabulary, less "lazy" about constructing sentences. I see it when I watch BBC (usually when we travel, we'll have that on in the room). Also, the times we've visited there (including Edinburgh, York, and London...) the "man on the street" seemed more eloquent than a typical American).

And, unless junior is planning to go pro, he should probably give up football. It is not conducive to a long, cognitively active, life. There has been a stream of studies over the past several years that indicate life-long deterioration from having played football, even if the player never had a major injury. A few weeks ago some dude shot himself in the chest to preserve his head for study, pleading in his note that they needed to use it to see what happened to him from football. He didn't even play pro (though a pro also committed suicide about 15 years ago, citing CTE which was later confirmed).

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/nyregion/nyc-sh...

At the college and pro level, you have 300lb guys that can run a 4.4 40yd dash (I could never do that even when I was young and thin). That's a LOT of kinetic energy slamming into you.

It's the brain. It's not worth it just to have some fun.

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