Overview
- An internal Trump administration document shows the anti-fraud tool detected only two potentially fraudulent calls out of over 110,000, a fraud rate of just 0.0018%.
- The anti-fraud checks, implemented by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, slowed retirement claim processing by 25%, delaying payments to beneficiaries.
- The policy applies only to phone-based claims and involves a three-day hold for fraud screening, despite an extremely low risk of fraud.
- Lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have criticized the measures as a pretext for undermining Social Security, calling the revelations a 'huge scandal.'
- The crackdown follows exaggerated claims by Trump and Musk that 40% of Social Security calls were fraudulent, a figure now debunked by internal data.