Trouble with Login.Gov and Social Security Account

Factual Questions
21

Except it’s nearly impossible to GET to live customer service workers.

I do agree that at least SOME of this is to reduce fraud, but the “A says B can help you, B says A can help” BS is a failure on the part of the agencies involved.

I think I’ve mentioned this somewhere on the boards before, but a year or so back, I needed to get a replacement copy of my deceased FIL’s SS statement from the prior year (1099? 1098?). Anyway - I spent an hour on hold waiting for an agent… then the person I spoke with was able to send me the document, to MY address (not the in-laws’ address), without any problem. I guess they figured that there was relatively little harm a scammer could do with that statement. I said something to that effect as the call was winding up, along with “What scammer would bother to wait an hour on hold?”.

It really was. A lot of these people were, well, not as educated or computer-savvy as most of us on the boards are, which didn’t help. And in many cases, money was so tight that spending 20 bucks or whatever to get a birth certificate was not easy to do.

Many of the people I dealt with had been victims of a widespread fraud a few months earlier, in which they got text messages to log in to their unemployment account to verify their info, and just click on the link in this text. The fraudsters had sent a bogus link, of course, and harvested the info and redirected the payments. So they were trying to straighten out that mess and get their benefits restarted. Which of course involved proving they were who they were.

My experiences then were a huge part of why I made DAMN sure my daughter (who lives in another state) has originals of the relevant documents, as well as a valid passport.

Of course, having all that stuff wouldn’t help with account screwups on the side of the agency, as appears to have happened with the OP, but it might help resolve it when it happens.

I personally found that the id dot me website, especially on mobile, was not terribly well designed. At least once when I was trying to use it for myself, I accidentally aborted the entire process by accident - and mine was one of the smoother experiences, from what I gather.

22

So this is interesting: Because of this thread, I decided to log in to my account at SSA and make sure it still worked.

I was directed to login dot gov, no surprise. My browser even remembered my password.

I had to input a code from an authenticator app - no problem, though I’d forgotten I had set that up. Had to look at the several of them on my phone to find the right one. Not sure what happens if I get a new phone!

Then, it began behaving as though I was setting up a NEW account. I had to enter my name, SSN, and so on. Plus, an activation code. Wha??

Fortunately, they still had my cell number on file, so that was handled via a text message. And I got a screen saying “Congratulations, you’ve successfully linked your SSA account to login.gov!!”.

Um… yeah. I did that months ago.

Anyway, I got in, and was able to view my SS estimates.

I would definitely encourage everyone to set up an account. Even if you are YEARS away from filing, it’s good to be able to check in from time to time.

23

Go to login.gov (not linked, so you get used to finding you’re own way there). Login, and enter the appropriate second factor code. I then see a screen that says “Your Account”. On the left side is a column that also says “Your Account”, but in a smaller letters. Towards the bottom of that column is a link that says “Get backup codes”. Click on that. It will give you a list of codes you can use instead of the code generated by your authenticator app.

Save these codes. Save them in your password manager, print them out, save them to a file you store locally. Whatever you do, save them in a place that you will think of them. For example, print them out and put them with your Social Security card. Then if you lose your phone you can use a code to login, and setup a new phone.

Some authenticator apps can transfer from one phone to a new one, so upgrading may not be a problem.

24

@Mama_Zappa

Thanks for your response. As I think I stated before, I am fairly fluent with technology and I have been a licensed social worker for almost 30 years. All that education and fluency dissolved into a puddle of frustration with this loop of madness. I can’t imagine what this would be like for someone with less resources and understanding.

I like to be able to talk to someone via phone or have the option of in person contact where feasible. That’s becoming a restricted commodity.

I lol’d at your comment about what kind of scammer would wait on hold for that long! Good one.

It makes me so angry that these scammers are taking advantage of folks with limited understanding about internet safety. It must been so frustrating for you and them to go about putting their financial lives back in order. A lot of unnecessary frustration and energy.

I guess I have higher expectations of these agencies. I should know better though.

It’s important to have all your hard copy documentation in order and in a safe location. Educating the young is so important. Good to hear you are working on that with your daughter.

I do most of my work on my desktop although I do have some things set up on my phone. I have bad eyesight and limited finger ability so it is just easier with a bigger screen and a keyboard.
I tried the ID me but my phone went wonky so I quit. Don’t know if I will try that again. Maybe.

Interesting to hear of your recent attempt to log in to your SS account. Happy to hear you were able to navigate through it all with only minor annoyance.

Yes - the activation code is what is holding me up. At least I got a guy say he would send me one. So we will see how it all works out once the rubber hits the road.

Maybe their system is set up to handle these logins easier via phone?

It still sounds like a wonky system to work with.

Yes everyone should sign up and get this worked out. It’s good to stay connected with your benefits and changes.

25

Everyone who’s paying in to SS or drawing SS, which is to say every adult American, should create and maintain an active SS account.

Both to track every year that SS gets your prior year earnings right while you still have the evidence to dispute them successfully, but also to prevent a bad actor from opening that account in your name and effectively locking you out.

Same for all your banks, cards, brokerages, etc. It’s far MORE dangerous to not set up online access than it is to have, and maintain online access.

26

Years before you think you will need it.

27

Are you paying in this year? Then you need an online account now to check that that is being done correctly.

The year you first need it is the first year you pay in, not the first year you draw out.

IMO YMMV.

28

Very true, but highly doubtful if anybody has done that…yet.

IIRC, I first created my SS account at around age 55, when I started thinking about retirement. The site will give you estimated payouts based on your current earnings history and the year(s) you decide to start drawing.

29

Hence my repeated exhortations. Mostly wasted on our over-50 demographics here.

30

Preach it!!

And also set up strong passwords of course (which I’m pretty sure everyone here knows).

I believe it’s also advised to set up accounts with irs.gov (which we’ve done). Dunno if that reduces the risk of someone filing a fraudulent return in your name (as happened with my in-laws) but it at least lets you monitor things if that happens.

One thing that confused the hell out of me at first was that one year, I duplicated the formula SS uses in a spreadsheet - and got basically the exact same number they did for my full retirement age benefit.

A year or so later, I looked - and their number was higher, even when my spreadsheet included more recent years’ earnings.

Took me a while to figure out that the new number included COLAs that had been applied in the interim.

So your actual cash benefit at retirement MAY be a little higher than the SSA dot gov website says right now, if you’ve got a year or so until retirement.

31

Government accounts can be a real PITA, but I understand the reasons behind it. When our government TSP accounts underwent a login change, I was able to wade through the mess it was to set up a new password for my account, despite the really crappy instructions. But when it came to trying to update my wife’s account, it became a hopelessly tangled mess that I am unable to un-fuck. She needs to call them, which is like having teeth pulled without pain killers, but my repeated appeals for her to do that have been to no avail. If I recall correctly, they have an automated call-back feature, so that makes it somewhat less of a chore.

32

Interesting information.

I kind of suspected that my actual SS payment would be a bit higher than the site indicated.

Thank you.

33

A BIG gotcha with SS’s expected payments is they assume you’ll keep working at your current wages until you reach your Full Retirement Age (“FRA”). Which is at least 68 & some months for anyone not yet retired.

If for whatever reasons you stop paying in earlier than that, e.g. at 65 when you’re first eligible for Medicare and no longer need your unpleasant job just because it has health insurance, then SS’s estimates will be high.

In my personal case I was required by law to retire from my career at age 65. I could certainly have taken some random low wage low skill job until my FRA of 68+, but there was nothing else that paid very well that I was qualified to do. Meanwhile all their estimates of my benefit included me paying in the SS max for 3-1/2 more years than I really did. So I had to do my own calcs to back out their bogus optimistic assumptions.

34

67, actually, for anyone born 1960 or later. Mine is 66 years and 10 months and I’m not yet retired.

What Is the Full Retirement Age for Social Security? | Retirement | U.S. News (usnews.com)

And yeah - the estimates on the SS page assume you continue earning your current salary for the remainder of your career.

I had built a spreadsheet into which I input all my earnings history, and multiplied each year by a multiplier (I forget what the term is, but it’s based on the cost of living increase in intervening years) that makes money earned 20 years ago more equivalent to what it would be worth now. For example if you earned 50K in 1990, it might be treated as 100K in the SS formula.

Then I plugged that into the formula - which is x percent of the first x1 wages, y percent of the next y1 wages (y being < x) and z percent of the remainder. And THAT gave me a number within a couple of dollars of the SS web page’s estimate.

Then I plugged in future years’ earnings. Interestingly, continuing to work at the current wages made very little difference to my benefit - maybe 20-30 bucks a month - because my “highest earning” years were not all that recent (due to lower raises in recent years) - so while next year’s wages DID replace a lower earning year’s wages in the 35 year average, they didn’t make that much difference all in all.

It’s still one more year in which I’m not drawing down on my 401(k) and also not taking SS (at the discounted pre-FRA amount).

35

I had a big post but accidentally deleted it. New keyboard. Damn.

Anyhow, thanks for fixing my typo. D’oh. 66 is not the same as 68. I’m a 66 & 10 months person my self.

36

I recently passed my 66 and 6 months full retirement date but will probably remain at work for another 8 or nine months.

37

I believe that last time I checked there was a calculator to estimate benefits that allowed you to specify the date you think you will stop paying into SS. So the pre-calculated estimated benefit they spit out might not be fully accurate, but actually using the calculator might be more so.

But I wouldn’t bet my left kidney on that info. That’s based off a vague memory of perhaps a dream of the last time I checked it a year or so ago :slight_smile:.

38

You must be talking about something specific - because when I go to my SS account for an estimate, I can enter my average future salary as $0 if I want to. And I can get an estimate for collecting at 62. I guess it would be a “gotcha” if I got my estimate at 60 , planned to stop working at 61 and didn’t change my future average salary. But I’m pretty sure when I got my estimate for collecting at 62 with average future earnings of $0 it wasn’t a gotcha.

( although really, it made me very happy I retired early when I changed the average future salary to my last salary - turns out if I had worked until 62 instead of retiring at 58, my SS benefit at 62 would have only been $20 more a month )

39

Agree that over a lifetime of work, the delta from these details tends to be small. Especially for high earners where their marginal payout rate is small.

The shortfall in their calculators from my POV was that, say, 3 years before my planned work stop date (which was well short of my FRA) the calculator had no way to say “current wages of $X for the next Y years, then zero wages for the remaining years to FRA.”

40

Yeah - unless your salary is going up noticeably every year, those last few years don’t make a lot of difference - assuming you’ve already got at least your 35 years in. When i plug estimated future salary into my spreadsheet, assuming I earn the same next year as this, it makes very little difference. Maybe 50 a month if I work 2 more years, but not much more.

Where it benefits me financially to keep working is that while I’m working, I’m not drawing down Social Security (which lowers my benefit because I’m taking it sooner), and I’m not drawing down my savings.