How Social Security Will Go After Overpayments

It has to be one of the worst letters in the world to receive. You go to the mailbox and open correspondence from Social Security. You expect to find a check, but rather you find a letter indicating the agency has paid you too much in benefits and the federal government now wants its money back. For the lucky ones who receive these notices, overpayments consist of a few hundred dollars, but for the unlucky ones, the overpayment can be tens of thousands of dollars. And, to make things worse, many times the mistake of making overpayments falls upon Social Security itself, but that won’t stop the agency from going after the money. Here is how Social Security will come after people who have received overpayments.

Overpayments are generally recovered by means of:

  1. Refund;
  2. Adjustment or withholding of benefits payable;
  3. Compromise settlement;
  4. Civil suit; or
  5. Existing debt collection tools, including tax refund offset, administrative offset, administrative wage garnishment, Federal salary offset and credit bureau reporting.
  6. Adjustment of SSA benefits to recover an SSI overpayment when the SSI recipient is no longer receiving SSI payments.

When It’s Social Security’s Fault

“Without fault” means that the overpayment did not result from your lack of care, such as:

  1. Furnishing full and accurate information affecting basic rights to benefit payment;
  2. Complying with annual earnings and other reporting requirements; and
  3. Returning checks believed not due.

Even if we caused the overpayment, you must show that you are without fault.

In deciding whether you are without fault in causing an overpayment, we consider your:

  1. Understanding of the reporting requirements and of the obligation to return payments which are not due;
  2. Knowledge of the occurrence of events which should have been reported;
  3. Efforts and opportunities to comply with the reporting requirements; and
  4. Ability to comply with the reporting requirements i.e., any physical, mental, educational, or linguistic limitations (including having difficulty with the English language).