It’s a nearly universal childhood experience: standing in front of an authority figure — your principal at school, a famously stern grandparent, your own parents at the end of their rope — with your stomach churning as they tell you at length how extremely disappointed they are.

No matter how many years have passed, that feeling remains fresh, and scammers have long since learned to harness it for criminal purposes.  That’s why they so often claim to be calling from a recognized authority such as your bank, the IRS or the police.  In recent years the Social Security Administration (SSA) has become the “authority of choice” for scam callers, topping even the IRS. 

Here are five of the most common Social Security Scams (most others are simply variations on the theme) and what you need to know to avoid falling for them. 

1. “Your SSN Has Been Used in the Commission of a Crime”

In this scam, you’ll receive a call telling you that your Social security number has been connected with criminal activity.  Some versions of the story name a specific crime — drugs, money laundering or something along those lines — but some don’t.  The criminal may badger you as if you’re suspected of involvement or, alternatively, play the role of a helpful customer service rep helping you resolve your problem. 

With the first type of caller, you may be threatened with arrest or legal action.  With the second you may be told that your social security account has been suspended pending investigation or that the SSA needs to issue you with a new card and number.  Some versions of the scam will ask you to “confirm” your SSN, which in practice means giving it to the scammer.  Others solicit a fee in order to reactivate your account or to issue you a new SSN. 

You can listen to a real-world recording of this type of scam at the AARP’s Social Security Scams page. 

2. “You May Have Been the Victim of Identity Theft”

Because life is filled with irony, some criminals will tell you that you’ve been the victim of identity theft in order to steal your identity.  In this instance the caller usually again plays the helpful service rep role. 

While the setup is slightly different from the above “criminal activity” scam, as you aren’t threatened with imminent arrest, the end result is the same.  You’ll be asked to either confirm your “old” SSN or to pay a few dollars to create the new one.

In the most brazen version of the scam, the caller will warn that criminals may have gained access to your banking information and will offer to help you move all of your money out of the compromised account.  The “moving your money out of your bank account” part is sadly accurate, though the rest of their story is fabricated. 

3. “Your Benefits Have Been Increased”

Scammers don’t always come to you with a stick; sometimes they bring the metaphorical carrot instead.  (Fear is a good motivator, but greed works too.)  In this common social security scam you’re told that you’re entitled to an increase in benefits, often — but not always — pitched as a cost of living adjustment. 

All you need to receive your extra few dollars each month is “verify” your name, date of birth and SSN, and possibly the details of the account where your money is deposited.  This allows scammers to steal your identity quite effectively, and they may even hijack your social security account in order to fraudulently claim your benefits. 

4. “You’ve Received Overpayments and Need To Remit Money”

This is a nasty and entirely plausible ruse, because we’ve all seen news stories of people who received overpayments from one or another government agency, innocently spent them without being aware of it, and experienced real hardship in trying to pay them back. 

These calls are some of the most alarming for victims, because the purported SSA representative almost invariably threatens loss of benefits, legal action, seizure of assets and potentially jail time if you don’t cough up some money RIGHT NOW! 

5. Scams via Emails, Text Messages and Letters

Social security scams often come by way of telephone calls, but that doesn’t mean you can trust emails or text messages (or even physical letters in the mail) purporting to come from the SSA.  These are usually (almost invariably) phishing attacks.  They use the same sham stories as the phone calls but give you a link to click, a number to call or an address to reply to. 

If you click the link you may be taken to a bogus website where your personal information will be harvested, or scammers might load your computer with malware.  If you call the number you’ll be given the same spiel you’d get from a robocall.  If you remit a payment or send personal information to the address in a bogus SSA letter, well, it’s lost and gone forever. 

How Common Are Social Security Scams? 

Within just the past few years, social security scams have become the most common type of “imposter” scam (the kind where the criminal pretends to be from a government agency or other authority).  In 2018 the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recorded only 15,221 reports of SSA imposter scams.  In 2019 that skyrocketed to over 478,000 incidents, and in 2020 it rose again to over 718,000.  The dollar amount associated with those complaints has risen as well, reaching almost $45 million in losses for the victims, or an average of $6,100. 

Although you might think of SSA scams as targeting older victims specifically, that’s not really the case.  The OIG’s midyear report to Congress for 2021 showed younger people as the most common victims, with under-30s and under-50s accounting for far more incidents than those aged 50 and up.  On the other hand, older victims tended to lose more money (perhaps just because they have more assets), peaking at an average loss of $8,565 per incident in the 70 to 84 age bracket.  

Why Are Social Security Scams So Effective? 

Social security scams — and imposter scams in general — work because they play to our natural and deeply ingrained fear of finding ourselves in the wrong with the authorities.  It’s the same feeling that makes us nervous about a police car in the rearview, even when we’re driving normally and have done nothing wrong. 

Scammers also rely on a varied bag of tricks to help push victims toward compliance: 

• Creating a sense of urgency so you won’t have time to think things through and become suspicious.
• Using dense “bureaucratese” in written communications to make the messages more confusing. 
• Spoofing the incoming phone number on your caller ID to make it look like the call really is coming from the SSA. 
• Using the names of real SSA personnel from the correct local offices. 
• Creating faked versions of the ID badges carried by real government personnel (they’ll send you a photo to “prove” their bona fides) or citing a badge number over the phone. 

How You Can Recognize a Social Security Scam

So how can you recognize a social security scam when you see it (or hear it)?  Usually, by paying attention to the things scammers do that real-world SSA representatives won’t.  For example, real employees would never: 

• Make threats.
• Tell you in a phone call they’re suspending your account because of criminal activity.
• Demand an immediate payment (again, if you genuinely owe money to the SSA you’ll get a letter telling you why and outlining your options to appeal the ruling).
• Request payment by cash, wire transfer, prepaid debit, gift cards or any other such hard-to-trace, hard-to-refund payment method. 
• Send you an email or text containing (or soliciting) your personally identifiable information. 
• Request a payment in order to increase your benefits or trigger a benefit.

So if you receive a call, email or other communication that appears to match one of those red flags, what should you do? 

How To Respond to a Potential Scam

If you’re in any doubt whatsoever about an incoming call or message from the SSA, the best response is simple:  Don’t engage.  If it’s a phone call, hang up.  If it’s an email or text message, don’t respond and especially don’t click any links.  If it’s a written letter, don’t reply and don’t call a phone number that’s provided in the letter. 

Next, reach out to the SSA directly by calling in to the real agency at its published number (800-772-1213) or log in to your mySocialSecurity account if you have one.  If there’s any legitimate issue with your social security, you’ll find out pretty quickly. 

If your call or message was indeed from a scammer, you can report it at the website of the Office of the Inspector General.  You should also report it to the FTC’s fraud reporting site and potentially the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center as well.  If the scammers approached you by way of a robocall, consider filing a complaint with the FCC too.  Recent legislation gives the authorities better tools for coping with the ways scammers misuse the telephone system, so this can have a big impact. 

If You Fell for the Scam

If you believe you’ve already fallen for a scam, you’d still need to follow most of those same steps.  One thing you should do differently is to go to the FTC’s IdentityTheft.gov website to report the incident, rather than the regular fraud reporting website.  Aside from providing an alternative reporting venue, it’ll walk you through the process of creating a personalized recovery plan to help minimize the damage. 

You might also want to take a look at our guide to recovering from identity theft, which gives an overview of the process. 

Finally, put aside the practical details and take a moment to forgive yourself for not recognizing the scam.  Remember, scammers are very good at what they do and you have a lot of company on the “should’ve known better” train.  Management gurus are fond of saying that it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it, and that’s a good rule to apply here.

Do what’s necessary to recover from the fraud, learn the lessons and move on.  The next time you’re faced with one of these calls or emails, you’ll know better.  It may be scant consolation right now, but you’ll benefit from your hard-won knowledge in the longer term. 

References:

• U.S. Federal Trade Commission – Growing Wave of Social Security Imposters Overtakes IRS Scam
• AARP – Social Security Scams
• AARP – Social Security Imposter Complaints Shatter Record in 2020
• U.S. Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General – Congressional Status Update, Social Security-Related Phone Scams
• U.S. Social Security Administration Blog – New Updates to Our Warning About Social Security Phone Scams
• U.S. Consumer Finance Protection Bureau – Five Ways To Recognize a Social Security Scam
• U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General – Do You Suspect Fraud, Waste, or Abuse? 
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission – Report To Help Fight Fraud!
• U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation – Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
• U.S. Federal Communications Commission – Consumer Complaint Center
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission – Report Identity Theft and Get a Recovery Plan