Are you ready to have Elon Musk steal money directly from your bank account?

Well crap. I might as well just write him a check and clear out my account.

There was a similar case like this recently on the evening news, and the family called the news’ consumer reporter for help. Social Security said that the person was overpaid and owed 70k. The consumer reporter looked into it and problem solved.

A friend is a recipient for her mentally ill family member and the Social Security office sent a letter about two years ago that he was overpaid and owed 10k. They were going to stop his payments until the amount was recouped. She went to Social Security office and the worker there lowered the amount. No court case, nothing official. I was saying WTF, anything with the government always involves paperwork and everything is official, not a worker making random decisions. My friend appealed it and they determined it was an error. That was right around the time it came out in the press that this type of error happened to other people.

I’m betting with a large portion of the population receiving some type of social security benefits, there are errors more often than we realize.

Wait till they make people pay back stimulus checks.

Bummer of a mistake. Not likely done intentionally. I’d like to know exactly how the mixup happened. Johnson is a very common name. Ned not so much.

Big Brother may take my SS money. I don’t want or need it. I take it only to help pay some of my taxes.

Old Ned will surely get his Social Security money back.

@gondwanalon, I don’t want Big Brother to be able to take away your SS, because if he does, he can also take away mine. And I do need it.

Just another brick in the wall.

They are getting more and more brazen with their lawlessness, even getting the pigs to do their dirty work:
Elon Musk’s DOGE Uses Police to Seize Independent Nonprofit

@ragingloli The days when they were called “pigs” are lonnng gone. They’re police officers or police or officers. But by all means blithely go on your merry way – I hope you don’t need them one day.

@smudges I can switch to calling them “Gestapo” if you like.
But maybe you are right. Since the heyday of “pig”, the cops have become much worse, so they deserve a moniker that also is much worse than a mere “pig”.
Feel free to make suggestions.

I wouldn’t call a cop a pig any more than I would use the N word or spit on someone. They’re just people with flaws like us. <shrug> that’s just me

@gondwanalon, if your glitch with the SSA was as easy to fix as you think “Old Ned’s” will be, please tell me how you did that. I have, in the last 6 years, had two separate incidents with the SSA which took enormous efforts to untangle.

And, as @Jeruba pointed out, the benefits are needed by many.