Report a Social Security impersonation scam through the Social Security Administration’s scam guidance, which links to the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General (SSA OIG) scam form. If the concern is suspected fraud, waste, or abuse in Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, use the OIG’s program-fraud reporting process instead. If you shared personal information or lost money, take separate steps to secure your accounts and begin recovery; filing a report alone does not do that for you.
The response depends on what happened: an attempted impersonation, exposure of your Social Security number or account credentials, or a financial loss. You may need to make more than one report and take more than one recovery step. Reporting helps the OIG identify patterns and support prevention and enforcement, but it does not guarantee that money will be recovered or that an account change can be reversed.
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How do I report a Social Security scam?
For a caller, text, email, or website pretending to represent Social Security, start at the SSA’s Protect Yourself from Social Security Scams page and follow its report-scam link to the SSA OIG’s online scam form. Do not use a reporting link or phone number supplied by the suspicious contact. The official route is intended to collect information about scam attempts; you can report an attempt even if you did not lose money or share information.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe OIG scam form asks about the incident date, what happened, whether money was lost, and details such as whether the contact claimed to involve your Social Security number (SSN), benefits, or my Social Security account. It also asks whether the person requested personal information or impersonated a government employee. Those questions help characterize the contact and its effect, so describe what actually happened rather than guessing about the person’s identity or motives.
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The live form asks for identifying contact information and a five-digit PIN. Its notice says providing information is voluntary, but leaving information out may limit a complete investigation; information may be used or shared as permitted by law. Review the notice before entering personal details. Use the form reached from the official SSA or OIG website, not a similar-looking page or a form linked in an unsolicited message. If you are unsure that a page is official, leave it and navigate to the SSA website independently.
An unexpected demand for money or sensitive information is a warning sign. The SSA OIG says real employees will not unexpectedly ask for personal or bank information, threaten to suspend your SSN or seize your account, direct you to transfer money to protect it, or demand payment by gift card, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, cash, or similar methods. Its August 31, 2026 alert, Protect Your Social Security Number, describes these warning signs. The key point is that a claim of urgency or danger is not a reason to follow the caller’s instructions or use contact details they provide.
Stop contact and verify independently
- End the conversation. Hang up, stop replying, and do not click links or open attachments from the suspicious message. Do not continue speaking with someone who is pressuring you to act, even to ask for more proof or to try to collect evidence.
- Look up the official contact yourself. If you need to check a Social Security matter, go to SSA’s official website and find its contact information there. For a bank account or transfer, call the number printed on your bank card or statement. Do not rely on a number, link, or payment instructions supplied by the suspected scammer.
- Report the impersonation. Use the SSA scam page and OIG scam form, even if you did not send money or provide information. Report attempts and actual losses with accurate details. A scam report and a recovery action are separate: use the relevant account, bank, or identity-theft steps as well.
Which Social Security report should I use?
The right route depends on whether someone impersonated Social Security or whether you suspect wrongdoing in an SSA program or operation. These reports serve related but distinct purposes. The scam route is for deceptive contact that claims to involve Social Security; the program-fraud route is for suspected fraud, waste, or abuse connected with Social Security or SSI programs and operations. If you experienced both, report each concern through the route designed for it.
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|---|---|---|
| Someone contacted you pretending to be from Social Security, or used an SSN, benefits, or my Social Security claim to solicit information or money | SSA’s scam guidance and its linked OIG scam form | Incident date, what the contact said or requested, whether personal information was sought, and whether money was lost. The online form has a privacy notice. |
| Suspected fraud, waste, or abuse involving Social Security or SSI programs or operations | SSA OIG’s reporting options, including its online reporting form, hotline, fax, or mail | Give factual details about who, what, when, where, how, and why. The hotline hours and contact details below are those listed on the cited official pages; check the current page before use. |
| Suspected Medicare or Medicaid fraud | Department of Health and Human Services OIG, not SSA OIG | SSA’s fraud-reporting FAQ directs Medicare and Medicaid reports to that agency. |
Reporting suspected Social Security or SSI program fraud
SSA directs suspected fraud, waste, or abuse involving Social Security or SSI programs to its OIG. The OIG’s Contact Us page lists an online reporting form and these other options:
- Fraud Hotline: 1-800-269-0271, listed as open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays.
- TTY: 1-866-501-2101.
- Fax: 1-410-597-0118.
- Mail: Social Security Fraud Hotline, P.O. Box 17785, Baltimore, MD 21235-7785.
Contact information and hours can change. Confirm the current details on the official OIG contact page before calling or sending material. These channels concern suspected program fraud, waste, or abuse. For a scammer impersonating an SSA employee, use the dedicated scam-reporting route rather than assuming the program-fraud hotline is the only place to report it.
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Keep Medicare and Medicaid allegations separate from Social Security and SSI allegations. SSA’s FAQ routes suspected Medicare or Medicaid fraud to the Department of Health and Human Services OIG, not SSA OIG. If the matter involves more than one program, check the relevant official guidance so each concern goes to the appropriate agency.
What should I do if I gave a scammer my Social Security number?
If you shared your SSN or other identity information, treat that as a separate recovery problem in addition to reporting the scam. SSA recommends going to IdentityTheft.gov through its scam guidance for an identity-theft recovery plan. The FTC resource is intended for cases where someone uses personal information to obtain a loan or job, file a tax return, or conduct other business. You can report the attempted impersonation to SSA OIG and use the FTC plan; one does not replace the other.
Think through what was exposed before taking action. Sharing an SSN is different from sharing an account password, banking details, or a verification code, but any information you gave may be relevant to your next steps. Do not send additional information to the original contact to “confirm” what they already have. Use official account and recovery pages that you reach independently, and follow the steps that apply to the information involved.
Secure your my Social Security account
- Go directly to SSA. Enter the official SSA web address yourself or use a trusted bookmark to reach my Social Security. Do not sign in through a link in the suspicious message. This reduces the risk of handing credentials to a fake sign-in page.
- Sign in or create an account and review your information. Check benefit and earnings information. SSA says an account can help secure personal information and alert users if someone tries to change an address or direct deposit without permission. If you see information or an attempted change that you do not recognize, use SSA’s official contact information to address it.
- Change exposed passwords. If you shared an account password, replace it with a strong, unique password. Change passwords on other accounts where you reused that password as well. A password changed only on one account does not protect other accounts that still use the same credentials.
Account review is a practical way to check for information you do not recognize; it is not a guarantee that no one has tried to access or change anything. SSA says the account can provide alerts about attempted address or direct-deposit changes. Keep using independently reached official pages, rather than responding to a caller who claims they can secure the account for you.
Consider a credit fraud alert
If identity information was exposed, consider asking Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to place a fraud alert, and follow the steps in your IdentityTheft.gov recovery plan. A fraud alert is one of the protective actions SSA’s guidance identifies; it does not replace reporting an impersonation attempt to OIG or addressing an account password that was exposed. These are protective steps, not a promise that every attempted account change or financial loss can be reversed.
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Identity theft is a different issue from a scam attempt. A person may report an attempted impersonation even if the scammer did not successfully use their information. If your information was used to apply for a loan or job, file a tax return, or conduct other business, the FTC identity-theft resource is specifically relevant. The recovery plan helps you determine what to do for the identity-theft situation; it is not a substitute for SSA’s scam-reporting form.
What if the scammer took money?
Stop communicating with the caller or sender, then contact your bank using the number on your card or statement. Explain what happened and follow the bank’s instructions. Use a trusted number you already have or can find independently, not a callback number in the message. If an unsolicited caller told you to move money to a supposedly “safe” account, do not make another transfer at that person’s direction.
SSA’s scam guidance also recommends contacting local police if money was stolen and following the FTC’s What To Do if You Were Scammed guidance. Keep any transaction details and communications that may help explain what happened, but do not delay urgent account protection while gathering them. Reporting a payment loss to SSA OIG does not replace contacting the financial institution about the transaction.
There is no universal recovery timeline or success rate in the cited official guidance. The outcome can depend on the specific situation, and the sources do not promise that a bank transfer, payment, or benefit change can be undone. Act promptly through trusted channels, follow the bank’s instructions, and continue with the identity-theft steps that apply if personal information was also exposed.
What details make a report useful?
For an OIG fraud report, provide as much factual information as you can about who, what, when, where, how, and why. The scam form requests incident and loss details. Give a clear account of what you personally saw, heard, received, or did. If you do not know a detail, do not invent it; a report can still describe the known facts and identify what is uncertain.
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- Date and time of the contact, and how it reached you (call, text, email, social media, or website).
- Name or account name used, phone number, email address, website address, and any links or payment instructions.
- What the person claimed, what they requested, and whether they asked for personal information, account access, or money.
- What information you shared, what action you took, and any transfer, payment, or transaction details.
- Whether the person claimed to be connected to your SSN, benefits, or my Social Security account, and whether money was lost.
Keep messages, emails, and documents if it is safe to do so. Preserve the details you already have, such as the sender address, caller number, or transaction information, but do not continue engaging with the suspected scammer to obtain more evidence. Do not delay an urgent password change, bank call, or other account-protection step while collecting records.
For suspected program fraud, the OIG asks for facts that help explain who was involved, what happened, when and where it occurred, how it was carried out, and why you believe it may involve fraud, waste, or abuse. Stick to the conduct you can describe. The scam form is more specifically focused on the impersonation incident, including date, details, and loss. Choosing the matching route and giving concrete facts makes the report more useful than sending an unsupported conclusion alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What happens after I report a scam?
Reporting provides information the OIG can use to identify scam patterns, refine prevention strategies, inform others, and support enforcement. The OIG’s Report the Scam page describes reports as useful data for combating scams. As the OIG puts it: “When you report a scam, you are providing us with powerful data that we can use to combat scams.” Reports can contribute to understanding activity, even when an individual report does not lead to a result that is shared with the person who filed it.
SSA says it reviews allegations and takes appropriate action, but it cannot disclose what action it took on a particular allegation because of restrictions on law-enforcement records, as explained on its Fraud Prevention and Reporting page. Do not assume that a lack of an individual update means a report was ignored; the agency’s stated limits mean it may not be able to tell you what happened with a specific allegation.
A report is not a guarantee of a particular outcome or recovery. The cited official guidance does not establish a universal recovery timeline or success rate. Continue with the account, bank, credit, and identity-theft steps that apply to your situation. In particular, do not wait for an OIG response before securing an exposed account or contacting your bank about money that was transferred.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I report a Social Security scam?
Start at SSA’s Protect Yourself from Social Security Scams page and use its report-scam link to reach the SSA OIG scam form. Report what happened, when it happened, whether money was lost, and whether the contact asked for personal information or claimed to involve your SSN, benefits, or my Social Security account. Use the official route reached independently, not a link supplied by the suspicious contact.
Where do I report someone pretending to be from Social Security?
Use the SSA/OIG scam-reporting route for impersonation attempts. Suspected fraud, waste, or abuse involving Social Security or SSI programs or operations belongs in the OIG program-fraud reporting process, which also lists an online form, hotline, fax, and mail. Suspected Medicare or Medicaid fraud is routed to the Department of Health and Human Services OIG.
What do I do if I gave a scammer my Social Security number?
Report the impersonation through the SSA OIG scam form, then use SSA’s guidance to reach IdentityTheft.gov for an identity-theft recovery plan. Go directly to my Social Security to review your information, change any exposed password, and change reused passwords on other accounts. Consider a fraud alert with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
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What should I do if I sent money to someone claiming to be from Social Security?
Stop communicating with the person and contact your bank using the number printed on your card or statement. Do not move additional money to a purported safe account at the caller’s instruction. SSA also recommends contacting local police if money was stolen and following the FTC’s scam-recovery guidance. Report the impersonation separately through SSA OIG.
Can SSA tell me what happened after I submit a report?
SSA says it reviews allegations and takes appropriate action, but it cannot disclose actions taken on a particular allegation because of restrictions on law-enforcement records. Reports help the OIG identify patterns and support prevention and enforcement, but they do not guarantee an individual recovery or a particular outcome.
The Bottom Line
Use SSA’s scam-reporting route for someone impersonating Social Security and the OIG program-fraud route for suspected wrongdoing involving Social Security or SSI. If your SSN, account credentials, or money was exposed, take separate steps: go directly to my Social Security, change exposed or reused passwords, consider a fraud alert, use IdentityTheft.gov, and contact your bank through a trusted number if funds were involved. Reporting helps the OIG combat scams, but it does not guarantee recovery or a specific result.
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