Crooks Hijack Retirement Funds Via SSA Portal
Summary: Identity thieves are registering accounts on the Social Security Administration's my Social Security portal using retirees' personal information and diverting their benefit payments to prepaid debit cards the thieves control. The SSA's Office of Inspector General reported 18,417 allegations of possibly fraudulent my Social Security account activity as of August 23, 2013, a shift that followed Treasury's near-universal direct deposit requirement and the portal's new ability to change deposit information online.
Key Takeaway: The scheme targets people who have not yet claimed their own portal account, and the SSA's Lasher notes many victims are elderly and not connected to the Internet - so the population least able to monitor the account is the one the fraud is built around.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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