I am living a nightmare with Social Security. I turned 70 in August and was counting on my full benefit for retirement. Shortly before my birthday a rep from SS called to encourage me to take a lump sum and a lower benefit, I said NO , he ignored me and processed the lump sum and reduced benefit without my permission. I have been fighting with SS for 7 months to get this rectified with no results. One of my friends who just turned 70 experienced the same problem. Seems like they are preying on folks approaching 70. Feels like a scam to me. Thanks, Carla

Hi Carla. What happened to you and your friend is unfortunate, but I don't believe it's a scam. It sounds more like individual Social Security employees who acted improperly. Social Security claims representatives are supposed to explain to people all of their filing options, but then they are supposed to let the claimant choose what to do. Social Security employees are not supposed to recommend one option over another, and they definitely shouldn't process a claim with a different month of entitlement than the one chosen by the claimant.

I don't know what you've already done to try to rectify the problem, but here are a couple possible options. If your initial month of benefit entitlement was 12 months ago or less, you could potentially withdraw your previous application and reapply with a different month of entitlement (https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/withdrawal.html). However, you'd want to be sure to reapply within 6 months after the month you turned 70 or else you would lose benefits.

Or, instead of withdrawing your application you can submit a written and signed request to change your month of election to start benefits to the month you turned age 70 (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200204047). If you choose this option, the preferred form to use is an SSA-795 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-795.pdf).

The second option is probably the safer option, but either way you'll have to repay the back pay you received before Social Security will process your request. And, no matter what, it will probably take a long time to resolve the problem and be very frustrating for you. If you can't get Social Security to cooperate with you then I would suggest contacting the office of your congressional representative or one of your U.S. senators. Oftentimes an inquiry received from a congressperson on behalf of a constituent can expedite the resolution of a problem.

Best, Jerry