Unfortunately, we live in a time where oddball financial advice crops up on social media — as a way to cope, perhaps, with all sorts of anxiety.
And unfortunately, again, some people could get hurt by following bad advice relating to many things, including Social Security.
A friend on Facebook recently shared a tip that didn’t sound quite right to me. “Folks, the federal workers began advising last month that all Americans remove all funds from the account where they normally receive any federal payments (Social Security, federal tax refunds and the like). Keep the account but only use it as a place for feds to transfer money. Immediately move all transferred cash to a separate account.”
The concern, according to the post: “DOGE can declare you dead and force your bank to send back any funds paid to you.”
The Department of Government Efficiency has fueled a sense of doom for many when it comes to Social Security payments, as the Elon Musk-led group develops aggressive strategies to cut costs in federal government agencies.
But making a quick move with your Social Security money — or listening to a scammer who calls out of the blue — isn’t the right thing to do here.
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The post I found on Facebook isn’t a savvy insider banking tip that you should follow if you’re anxious about the possibility that something could go haywire at the Social Security Administration. In fact, it could be exactly the wrong move for many people to make right now.
“A knee jerk reaction could just make things worse,” warns Mary Johnson, an independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst.
Retirees don’t want to start keeping a lot of cash on hand, of course, because they fear that their Social Security money will be seized by the federal government. Keeping too much cash on hand only makes you a mark for getting robbed at home or on the street.
And there are very good reasons why you want to keep Social Security benefits in the account where it’s directly deposited each month.
For example, Johnson noted, Social Security accounts enjoy special protections under law. If someone followed that advice on Facebook and transferred their Social Security benefits into a different consumer account, she said, “they might open themselves up to weaker consumer protections, scam and worse.”
Social Security payments are specially coded when sent to the consumer’s account, according to banking experts, so your bank can identify and protect those benefits from certain types of garnishment. But there’s no such code when the money is transferred from the account that received the government benefits into another account.
