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Social Security Fraud Has Central Texans Saying, "Say What?"


Over the last 30 years more than 4,000 non-citizens have been able to obtain -- not one -- but two social security numbers allowing them to possibly defraud the government.  That's the finding of a recent audit by the Social Security Administration.  The SSA says the audit was prompted by one person who was able to collect $55,000 in housing and disability benefits with one fake social security number while working using a different fake number. 

This story has viewers talking:

"I know the government is trying to put better systems into place but I don't know what they can do." –Terry Hernandez.

"There's just a lot of that stuff going on.  I mean there's just all kinds of fraud going on.  They're doing it with social security.  They're doing it with Medicaid, all that other stuff." –Jesse Garcia.

"It hurts every one of us since we're all trying to make it and pay these taxes." –Kenyon White.

"No kidding, my grandmother does (count on Social Security) and she has a hard time.  So for anybody to do that, that's not right." –Margarita Acevedo.

There is some good news in the report:  Social Security is getting better at keeping this fraud from happening.  In fact, when they looked at the last 30 years altogether only 12.5 percent of this double dipping happened in the last decade.

By Fred Cantu