Warnings Issued Regarding “My Social Security” Email Phishing Scam

February 10, 2014

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is making efforts to move as many processes as possible to digital, paperless, and online platforms. In order for them to do so, claimants must sign up for a “My Social Security” account on the SSA’s website. However, many citizens are reporting they are receiving emails requesting they create an account despite having never given their email addresses to the SSA.

Experts say these emails are part of a Social Security Disability Benefits phishing scam that is gathering information to be used fraudulently. Officials have stated that if an individual receives such an email, they should not open any of the links and report the incident immediately. More safety tips can be seen here.

This leaves many citizens wondering how they can identify such fraudulent emails in the future. The Social Security Disability Benefits Lawyers with Fleschner, Stark, Tanoos and Newlin point out emails coming from the SSA will come from an address ending in .gov and will not be associated with a private email provider, such as Yahoo or Gmail. Furthermore, no email from the SSA will request information via an electronic response. Instead, it will request data be updated through the SSA’s online forms.

Citizens should never respond or click on any such suspicious emails.