The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), established by Elon Musk’s team, entered the Social Security Administration (SSA) with a mission to cut costs and eliminate perceived widespread fraud. DOGE believed that much of this fraudulent activity occurred over the phone. Despite not being a Cabinet-level agency, DOGE’s influence led to the implementation of a controversial phone policy aimed at fraud detection.
At DOGE’s request, a security verification process was developed to detect allegedly fraudulent claims made by phone. This involved a three-day hold on all phone claims while personnel verified the caller’s background. The system mirrored internet claim verification, where claims remain in a database for days before processing. Despite internal skepticism about its necessity, the policy was implemented due to fears of job loss if DOGE’s demands were not met.
The three-day security verification was abandoned due to its ineffectiveness in identifying fraud. It only flagged a couple of potential fraud cases out of 110,000 calls reviewed.
MiBolsillo Colombia: SSA’s DOGE phone policy led to delays with minimal fraud caught
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