When Your Government Can't Answer the Phone, Scammers Will

GM, Welcome Back to the Dead Drop.

Last week, I showed you the mathematics of economic desperation. Twenty-two states in recession. Americans carrying $1.21 trillion in maxed-out credit cards. Fraud losses jumping 25% in a single year while Chinese organized crime groups turned SMS phishing into a billion-dollar empire.

That was the setup.

This is the kill shot.

Because while you were worried about text messages promising unpaid tolls, organized criminals were executing something far more sophisticated: they were impersonating the very government agencies that millions of desperate Americans were desperately trying to reach.

And it's working. Spectacularly.

Government imposter scams extracted $577 million from Americans in 2024, continuing a multi-billion dollar fraud epidemic that law enforcement can't seem to stop. But here's what nobody's telling you: this isn't happening despite government function. It's happening because of government dysfunction.

The same fiscal mathematics that make economic recession inevitable have created an administrative crisis so severe that scammers don't need to be creative anymore. They just need to answer the phone faster than Social Security does.

Let me show you exactly how it works.

The Impossible Math: Why the Government Can't Cut and Can't Stop

The U.S. government just crossed $38 trillion in debt. They added $1 trillion in just two and a half months. For fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30th, the federal government overspent by $1.78 trillion.

Here's the brutal arithmetic: The government collected $5.23 trillion in revenue. They spent $7 trillion. That's not a rounding error. That's not partisan politics. That's just math.

Where did the money go?

• Social Security benefits: $1.5 trillion

• Healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid): Over $1.5 trillion

• Interest payments on debt: $970 billion

• National defense: $917 billion

Read that again. The U.S. government now spends more money on interest payments ($970 billion) than on the entire military ($917 billion). And it's only going to get worse.

Here's the question nobody in Washington wants to answer: Where do you cut?

Even if you eliminated every dollar of Social Security, every payment to all 72 million recipients, you still wouldn't balance the budget. The deficit is $1.78 trillion. Social Security is $1.5 trillion. The math doesn't work. And those 72 million Americans? They vote.

The same logic applies to Medicare and Medicaid. You can't touch them without creating a political and humanitarian catastrophe.

And interest payments? The government can't just stop paying creditors. That triggers default, dollar collapse, and the loss of reserve currency status. The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates specifically to reduce this expense, but those lower rates only apply to newly issued debt. The existing $38 trillion? Still accruing interest at whatever rate it was issued.

The only path forward is to print money, which causes inflation, which erodes purchasing power, which creates financial desperation, which feeds the fraud epidemic.

Every American president e.g. Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and now Trump again, has added record amounts to the national debt. This isn't a partisan problem. It's a mathematical inevitability. Both parties overspend. The debt train can't be stopped.

And when governments can't deliver on their promises, criminals fill the vacuum.

The Administrative Catastrophe: When Promises Become Delays

While the government debates fiscal policy, real people are drowning in bureaucratic dysfunction.

Want to apply for Social Security retirement benefits? The website says it takes "30 days" to process your application. That's a lie.

The reality in 2025:

• Standard applications: 6-8 weeks (if you're lucky)

• Complex applications: 2-4 months (common)

• Worst cases: 8 months (increasingly frequent)

Online forums are filled with Americans in their 60s and 70s, past their full retirement age, watching their savings drain while waiting for benefits they've paid into for 47 years. They check their "my Social Security" accounts obsessively. The status never changes. It just says "processing" with no updates, no communication, no timeline.

One woman filed in April 2025 for standard retirement with no unusual circumstances. In June, she was still waiting. No letters. No requests for additional information. Just silence from the Chicago processing center.

Why is it taking so long? Because the Social Security Administration is completely overwhelmed. Staffing shortages created by years of budget constraints have collided with record application volumes. Processing times that used to take 30 days now take four months, if your application is straightforward.

But it gets worse.

The Social Security Fairness Act: A Promise That Became a Crisis

In January 2025, President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act, eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). This was supposed to restore benefits to 3 million public sector retirees, police officers, firefighters, teachers, who'd been penalized for decades.

Biden promised the benefits would be paid in 2025.

The Social Security Administration said: "We don't know when."

Some estimates suggest it could take a year or more. Why? Because the adjustments must be done manually, on a case-by-case basis, by staff that are already stretched impossibly thin processing routine applications that are four months behind schedule.

Three million Americans entitled to retroactive payments and benefit increases are watching their government struggle to deliver on a promise signed into law, with no clear timeline for when they'll see the money they're owed.

The Government Shutdown: Gasoline on the Fire

On October 1, 2025, the federal government shut down after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement. While Social Security benefit payments continued (they're mandatory spending), almost everything else stopped.

Field offices couldn't provide proof of benefits letters, couldn't update earnings records, couldn't process new claims efficiently. The backlog that was already months long grew longer. Appeals halted. Death notifications paused. Income verifications froze.

When the government reopened, those accumulated cases created backlogs that experts estimate will take months to resolve.

Think about what this creates: Millions of Americans who desperately need government benefits, waiting months for processing, unable to get anyone on the phone, receiving no updates, watching their savings evaporate.

That's not a customer service problem. That's a national security vulnerability.

The Criminal Opportunity: When Desperation Meets Confusion

Government imposter scams have been around for decades. The IRS scam was the gold standard: call someone, claim they owe back taxes, threaten arrest, demand immediate payment via gift cards.

For years, IRS imposters were the dominant government scam. Then something shifted. Social Security Administration imposters have now overtaken IRS scams, and it's not even close.

The numbers tell the story:

• Consumers lost over $10 billion to scams in 2023, with $617.9 million specifically from government imposter scams

• As of November 2024, government imposter scam losses for 2024 exceeded $577 million

• In the past 12 months, people filed over 76,000 reports about Social Security imposters, with reported losses of $19 million

• Older adults lost $179.6 million to imposter scams in 2023 alone

Why did SSA scams overtake IRS scams? Because the operational reality changed.

When someone calls claiming to be from the IRS, most people know they haven't had recent IRS contact. But millions of Americans are actively waiting for Social Security to process their applications. When that call comes in saying "there's a problem with your benefit application," it doesn't feel like a scam. It feels like the follow-up you've been desperately waiting for.

The confusion isn't accidental. It's systematic.

The New Supreme Court Scam: Evolution in Real Time

In October 2025, the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General issued an urgent warning about a new government imposter operation that demonstrates just how sophisticated these criminals have become.

Victims receive an official-looking letter on fake U.S. Supreme Court letterhead, complete with forged signatures of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The letter is personally addressed to the victim. It claims they're a primary suspect in legal proceedings and criminal charges. It states that according to SSA and the "Drug Enforcement Agency" (note the incorrect name), the recipient's Social Security number has been compromised and will be replaced.

Then comes the financial pressure: The letter falsely claims the Supreme Court requested financial institutions to freeze all assets, and warns that recipients cannot maintain balances exceeding $10,000 in any banking institution or hold $80,000-$100,000 in investments.

But here's where it gets truly sophisticated: the letter is just the beginning.

Scammers follow up with text messages from a phone number, saying "This is the Social Security Administration—we're going to be calling you from this number in a few seconds." Then the call comes in from that exact number, authenticated by the text you just received.

The multi-channel approach, physical mail, text message, phone call, creates psychological legitimacy. Each touchpoint reinforces the others. By the time you're on the phone with the "SSA official," you've already been conditioned by two prior contacts.

The text may include a link to a fake Social Security website that captures login credentials and passwords when victims try to access their accounts.

This isn't some guy in a basement with a burner phone. This is industrial fraud infrastructure with multi-million dollar budgets, international logistics, and operational sophistication that rivals legitimate businesses.

The Psychology of Government Imposter Fraud

Why do these scams work so well? Because they exploit three psychological pressure points simultaneously:

1. Authority Exploitation

The fraudsters aren't just claiming to be someone from the government. They forge signatures of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and reference specific SSA executives by name. They use official seals, government jargon, and procedural language that sounds precisely like what a real government communication would include.

Most Americans have been conditioned since childhood to trust official government communications. When you see the Supreme Court seal, forged signatures of justices you recognize from the news, and detailed references to federal agencies, your brain defaults to compliance.

2. Desperation Amplification

These scams surge during predictable patterns. Medicare Open Enrollment Period and tax season see massive increases in government imposter scams because criminals know that when caller ID says "US government," people actively expecting government contact are more likely to answer.

When you've been waiting four months for your retirement benefits to process, when you've called the SSA 800 number seventeen times and gotten busy signals or seven-minute hold times before being disconnected, when you desperately need that money to avoid dipping further into savings, when that call finally comes claiming to be the follow-up you've been waiting for, you want to believe it.

Desperation doesn't make you stupid. It makes you hopeful. And hope is what criminals exploit.

3. Confusion Capitalization

The Social Security Fairness Act passed in January 2025. Three million people were told they'd get retroactive payments and benefit increases. By October 2025, most still hadn't received anything. The government said "we're working on it" with no clear timeline.

What happens when you promise 3 million people money, create legitimate confusion about when and how they'll receive it, and then scammers call claiming to help expedite the process?

Some of those 3 million people send money to "process their retroactive benefits." Some provide their Social Security numbers to "verify their eligibility." Some wire funds to "secure their account during the transition."

Every point of government dysfunction is a scam opportunity. Every delayed promise is a criminal entry point. Every bureaucratic failure is a fraud vector.

The Scale of Industrial Fraud

This isn't just phone calls and emails. The infrastructure behind government imposter scams is international and sophisticated.

In late 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice filed action against one illegal telemarketing operation that alone was responsible for making over a billion scam calls to older adults. One billion. A single operation.

These organizations have:

• Call centers spanning multiple countries

• Spoofing technology that makes calls appear to originate from real SSA phone numbers

• Data brokers providing them with names, addresses, and approximate ages of likely targets

• Scripts refined through A/B testing to maximize conversion rates

• Payment laundering networks involving cryptocurrency, gift cards, and international wire transfers

Scammers use the well-earned money they steal to help fuel their criminal enterprises, which according to FTC and FBI reports, may often involve organized crime networks.

The money you send thinking you're paying a "processing fee" to expedite your Social Security benefits? It funds networks that also traffic fentanyl, run human smuggling operations, and finance transnational organized crime.

Field Manual: Defensive Protocols Against Government Imposter Fraud

The most effective defense isn't technology. It's knowledge. Here's what you need to understand:

What Real Government Agencies Will NEVER Do:

The Social Security Administration will NEVER:

• Call, email, text, or message you on social media to ask for money or personal information

• Threaten suspension of your Social Security number (this is impossible, as SSNs don't get "suspended")

• Demand immediate payment to resolve an issue

• Require payment via gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, or mailing cash

• Ask for your Social Security number to "verify" it (they already have it)

The IRS will NEVER:

• Call you about taxes unless you set up an appointment first

• Email, text, or message you on social media with threats or demands for payment

• Threaten arrest or deportation for unpaid taxes via phone

• Demand immediate payment. If you owe taxes, the IRS contacts you by mail first

The Supreme Court will NEVER:

• Send you letters about Social Security benefits

• Investigate individuals (SCOTUS is an appeals court, not an investigative body)

• Request asset freezes for Social Security issues

Proactive Defense: Lock Down Your Digital Identity

Before scammers try to impersonate you to government agencies, lock down your identity at the source. Create verified accounts on Login.gov and ID.me immediately. These are the two primary identity verification platforms used by federal agencies including Social Security, IRS, and Veterans Affairs. If you create and verify your account first, scammers can't digitally squat on your identity to file fraudulent claims, intercept benefits, or access your government records. Think of it as claiming your territory before criminals can: verify your identity once properly, and you prevent them from doing it fraudulently on your behalf.

Verification Protocol:

If you receive ANY communication claiming to be from a government agency:

✓ STOP: Don't respond immediately, even if it creates urgency or fear
✓ HANG UP: End the call/ignore the message
✓ VERIFY INDEPENDENTLY: Go directly to the official government website (type it yourself, don't click links)
✓ CALL OFFICIAL NUMBERS: Use phone numbers from official .gov websites only
✓ REPORT: File reports at oig.ssa.gov/report and reportfraud.ftc.gov

Early Warning Signs:

X Emotional manipulation: "Your benefits will be suspended!" "You'll be arrested!" "Your accounts are frozen!"
X Urgency tactics: "You must act within 24 hours" or "This is your final notice"
X Payment method red flags: Gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfers, cash by mail
X Information requests: Asking you to "confirm" SSN, banking details, or passwords
X Multi-channel contact: Letter followed immediately by text and phone call
X Caller ID spoofing: Even if the number looks official, it can be faked

What To Do If You've Been Targeted:

If you only received the communication:

1. Do not respond in any way

2. Screenshot/photograph the message as evidence

3. Report to SSA OIG and FTC immediately

4. Delete/destroy the communication

5. Warn family members and friends

If you already sent money or provided information:

1. Immediate: Contact your bank/credit card company to block transactions

2. Place fraud alert with credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion)

3. Monitor accounts daily for unauthorized activity

4. Report identity theft at IdentityTheft.gov

5. File police report for documentation

6. Change passwords on all accounts (especially if you clicked any links)

The Fraudfather Bottom Line

The government's fiscal crisis isn't just about national debt and interest payments. It's about operational capacity. When the government overspends by nearly $2 trillion annually, when it can't afford to properly staff the agencies that millions of Americans depend on, when processing times balloon from 30 days to 8 months, when promised benefits get delayed by a year or more; that dysfunction becomes infrastructure for fraud.

Criminals don't need to create sophisticated social engineering scenarios anymore. They just need to call you before Social Security does.

The $577 million stolen through government imposter scams in 2024 isn't the ceiling. It's the baseline. Because the fiscal mathematics that created this crisis aren't improving, they're accelerating.

The debt will grow. The interest payments will expand. The political paralysis will continue. The bureaucratic dysfunction will worsen. And every month that your benefit application sits in "processing" status, every week you can't get someone from SSA on the phone, every day you wait for the retroactive payment you were promised, scammers are counting on your desperation, your confusion, and your hope.

Here's what you need to remember:

If the government actually needs to contact you about your benefits, they will send you a letter via U.S. Mail. Not a phone call. Not a text. Not an email. A physical letter to your address of record.

If someone calls, texts, or emails claiming to be from SSA, Medicare, or the IRS and creates urgency, demands payment, or requests personal information: it's a scam. Every single time. No exceptions.

The government might be slow, inefficient, and bureaucratic. But they will never threaten you, demand gift cards, or suspend your Social Security number.

When you can't reach your government, scammers are betting you'll reach for them instead.

Don't give them that opportunity.