Need help with FICA. Need answer sort of fast.

Factual Questions
1

For years the Social Security administration has been directly depositing my and my wife’s monthly FICA check directly into my bank account. Unfortunately, as the result of a mailbox theft combined with a check washing episode, it recently became necessary to close my bank account and start a new one. My problem is that I’ve been unable to find a workable procedure to notify FICA of the new account number.

The only way that I could find presented by the FICA web site involves calling a telephone number, and then entering into the abyss of their voice recognition system. After fifteen minutes of trying, I was unable to succeed in even getting them to recognise my name. (I spent a lot of time listening to a recording telling me “I didn’t understand that, please repeat your last name”). Or variations therof. Anyway, I abandoned the attempt, and put the phone down, rather forcefully.

Further searching of their web site continued to be unsuccessful. I did write the local FICA office and asked them for the address to which I could send the new information, but after a week and a half they have not seen fit to respond.

I know there must be an easy way to get the new account numbers to the FICA, and am feeling considerable frustration with the fact that this is evidently beyond my poor powers of using the Internet. Any help from you Dopers would be very much appreciated.

2

I’d call your local representative’s office; they’re good at dealing with this sort of thing for their constituents. I had a patient who was declared dead by the Social Security office, and it took him calling his representative (Rahm Emanuel - now the mayor of Chicago) to get them to acknowledge that no, apparently he was not dead, and he should continue receiving his checks.

3

Call your bank. They will know what to do.

4

If you have a Social Security online account, you can go here and click on “Sign up for or change direct deposit.” If you don’t have an online account, you can go here to get a password.

5

Thanks to all for the advice. I’ll try that online account thing first. BTW, I did ask the bank, but they didn’t have any ideas.

6

Just checked the online account site. The first thing they said was that after I made my request, they would mail a temporary password to me, but that it could take up to fifteen days to get here. Not much help.

7

Can you not instruct your bank to put the direct deposits into your new account until you can get the SSA to use your new account number? If it’s really urgent to you, you should just head to the nearest SSA office to get this ironed out.