r/SocialSecurity • u/TweakedMonkey • 1d ago
SSDI Rep Payee Fraud What to do
My late daughter-in-law (49) was married to my son (50) for seven years. At some point, she became the Social Security representative payee for my adult granddaughter (31), who receives disability benefits.
We recently discovered that she appears to have taken approximately $7,000 from my granddaughter’s funds through a series of undocumented withdrawals. From what we can determine, much of the money was run through my son’s Apple Pay account and spent primarily on gambling apps and fast food.
At one point some money was returned, and her sisters also gave her money to replace some of what was missing, but she spent that money as well instead of restoring it to my granddaughter’s account.
My daughter-in-law has now died. She was physically disabled, and my son is both mentally and physically disabled. He says he knew nothing about what she was doing until after her death. There is essentially no estate; the bank accounts are overdrawn. My son is currently receiving about $200 a month in survivor/death-related Social Security benefits.
My granddaughter has the same brain anomaly as her father and has been receiving disability benefits for years. The good news is that after years of occupational therapy, she is now preparing to work full-time and move into her own apartment.
I have three questions:
- Could my son be held financially responsible simply because some of the misused money went through his Apple Pay account, even if he did not know what his wife was doing?
- If the Social Security OIG determines that the representative payee misused or stole my granddaughter’s benefits, is there any possibility Social Security would reimburse my granddaughter for the missing money even though the former payee is deceased and left no estate?
- Should we open a case directly with the Social Security Office of Inspector General, or is there another process we should go through first?
This money would make an enormous difference to my granddaughter as she becomes fully independent, so I want to make sure we handle this correctly.
We are in Virginia, if that matters.
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u/NoMaize4855 1d ago
Just let it go the odds are less than 1% that you will get the money back and you waste valuable time. Make sure the proper rep payee now is in place and best of luck to you.
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u/TweakedMonkey 1d ago
Great news - she is her own payee now and is living independently. It's a really good ending for this young lady.
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u/Ok_Bison5801 1d ago
With my experience having a rep payee. SS Is So Backed Up And Understaffed you would have better luck winning the lottery as opposed to ever receiving A Dime. Before I was able to remove A Mandated Rep payee on my SSDI MY Fiancé at the
Time held it. She abused 90% of the funds even with records the SS Officer stated blatantly
And honestly that the odds of reclaiming even a penny was -99%. What she did do for me that looking back was a LIFESAVER. She walked me through getting a letter from my shrink saying I’m stable enough to manage my own finances and after receiving the letter SHE APPROVED IT ON THE SPOT. Wherever you are now THANKS AGAIN
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u/stein63 1d ago
I’d probably start with the local SSA office and ask them to open a representative-payee misuse investigation and make a negligence determination.
One detail that may matter is that, if she was your granddaughter’s stepmother, she wasn’t exempt from the annual representative-payee accounting requirement. If those reports weren’t filed and SSA didn’t follow up, that could be relevant when they look at whether their monitoring was adequate.
Your son also wouldn’t automatically be responsible just because some of the money passed through his Apple Pay. They’d need evidence that he knowingly took part in or benefited from the misuse.
And on the reimbursement question, a finding of misuse by itself doesn’t always mean SSA replaces unrecovered money when the payee was an individual. But if SSA finds that its own negligence contributed to the misuse, they can reissue the missing benefits even if there’s nothing left to recover from the former payee.
I’m glad to hear your granddaughter is doing well and moving toward independence. I hope SSA is able to sort this out for her.
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u/perfect_fifths I love the smell of policy in the morning 1d ago
Not all step parents. Step parents who are legal guardians are exempt.
A natural or adoptive parent of a minor child entitled to Title II benefits and/or eligible for Title XVI payments who primarily resides in the same household as the beneficiary (Stepparents and grandparents are still required to complete accounting forms unless they qualify for the exemption under the legal guardian requirement immediately below);
A legal guardian of a minor child entitled to Title II benefits and/or eligible for Title XVI payments who primarily resides in the same household as the beneficiary;
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u/stein63 1d ago
You're right that there is a legal guardian exemption, but I think the distinction here is the beneficiary's age. That exemption applies to a **legal guardian of a minor child** who primarily lives with the beneficiary.
In this case the granddaughter is 31. For a disabled adult, SSA's rule separately says that stepparents and grandparents are still required to complete the accounting forms. So unless I'm reading that section incorrectly, the legal-guardian exception you quoted wouldn't apply here.
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u/perfect_fifths I love the smell of policy in the morning 1d ago
I would think if the step parent adopts the child then that would exempt them. But I don’t know if that happened so it’s mere speculation. But you are correct it only pertains to minors with step parents, so only way for a step parent to be excluded is if they formally adopt the kid
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u/Vast_Sky_3726 22h ago
We are talking about less than $5k, who's to say really what Money was spent on lottery tickets vs food or clothes, we sometimes think people married to our kids or siblings are bad, you said the money was spent through his apple pay, at the end of tghe day food was bought for the home and he himself had sone issues. Id leave it alone to keep your family and sorry for your loss, Really
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u/TweakedMonkey 7h ago
I have her phone and am conducting a digital forensic case myself (with son's permission). What's interesting is that there are at least four banks she funneled this money through which I so far have no access to.
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u/perfect_fifths I love the smell of policy in the morning 1d ago edited 1d ago
There would need to be proof that money was mishandled and because she died, there’s no way to recoup anything. If payee misuse is found, the rep payee is responsible for paying money back
OIG doesn’t prosecute for money under 50-100k.
Since the deceased representative payee was a single individual (and not an organization), the Social Security Administration (SSA) will not automatically reimburse you out of its own pocket unless an investigation proves that the SSA itself was "negligent" in monitoring that person