Social Security wants half your check

Hi friend,

If you've ever opened a letter from Social Security and felt your stomach drop, this issue is for you. There's a notice going out right now that can cut a check in half — but most people who get one don't realize how much power they actually have to stop it. I'll show you the exact window and the exact forms. Then, a fake text that's fooling careful people, and a couple of checks worth claiming before summer's out.

The letter that takes half your check — and the 30 days that can stop it

Here's the number that should get your attention: if Social Security decides it overpaid you, and you don't respond within 30 days, it will start withholding 50% of your monthly benefit automatically — every month — until the debt is repaid. For SSI recipients, the automatic rate is 10%. That's confirmed straight from the source (SSA).

Put a real number on it: the average 2026 retirement benefit is $2,071 a month (SSA). Half of that is just over $1,000 gone every single month — not because you did anything wrong today, but because of a mismatch the agency says happened months or years ago.

Here's my honest take: this is scarier in the letter than it has to be in real life. You have real options, and the deadline to use them is short but very doable. Within that same 30 days, you can:

• File Form SSA-561 (Request for Reconsideration) if you think the overpayment amount is wrong, or that there wasn't an overpayment at all.

• File Form SSA-632 (Request for Waiver) if you agree it happened, but it wasn't your fault and you can't afford to pay it back.

• File Form SSA-634 (Request for a Lower Withholding Rate) if you agree you owe it and can repay it, just not at 50% a month.

File any of these within 30 days of the notice date, and SSA will not start withholding while it reviews your request. Miss the window, and the automatic withholding kicks in regardless.

→ Your move: if a notice like this ever lands in your mailbox — yours, a parent's, a neighbor's — don't sit on it. Call SSA at 1-800-772-1213 or visit your local office within days, not weeks, and ask which of the three forms above fits your situation. The 30-day clock is the whole game.

Scam of the Week: the toll bill that was never a toll bill

You get a text: an unpaid toll, a small dollar amount, a link, and a threat — pay now or your registration gets suspended. It looks like it's from E-ZPass, SunPass, FasTrak, or TxTag. It isn't.

This is one of the fastest-growing scams going. The FTC says reports of government-imposter scams are up 40%, and a good share of that is these toll texts (FTC). The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has logged well over 2,000 complaints about these exact toll-text schemes.

The one tell: real toll authorities bill you by mail or through the account you set up directly with them — never by an urgent text with a payment link. If you didn't sign up for text alerts with your toll agency, any text "from" them is fake, full stop.

→ Do this: don't click the link. Delete the text, or forward it to 7726 (SPAM) first. If you want to double-check a toll balance, go straight to your toll agency's official site or app — never the link in the text. Report it at IC3.gov or ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Money You're Owed: two checks that don't need a receipt

• Fidelity Investments data breach — if your account and routing numbers were exposed in the August 2024 breach and you got a settlement notice, you can claim roughly $100 in cash with no proof required (an extra $50 for California residents), or up to $5,000 if you had documented losses, plus two years of credit monitoring. You'll need the login ID and PIN from your notice. Deadline July 27, 2026 — note the settlement's final court approval was scheduled for July 9, so double-check it's final before you file.

• Amazon Prime refund — if you signed up for Prime between June 2019 and June 2025 and either didn't mean to, or tried to cancel online and couldn't, you may be owed up to $51. Amazon already sent automatic refunds to some people in late 2025; if you didn't get one, check for a claim notice by mail or email and file at the site named on it. The FTC is blunt about this one: it will never ask you to pay a fee to get this refund, and neither will Amazon — anyone who does is a scammer (FTC).

• And the free two-minute one: search your name, your maiden name, and every state you've lived in at MissingMoney.com, the official unclaimed-property database.

The One Number: 3.8%–4.7%

That's the current range of early estimates for the 2027 Social Security COLA — which would make it one of the largest raises in decades if it lands at the top end. The higher number comes from independent analyst Mary Johnson, who says it could climb further if gas prices keep rising; the lower number is the Senior Citizens League's more cautious read.

Neither is official. SSA announces the real number in October, based on third-quarter inflation data — and remember, last year's headline $56 raise turned into a real $38 once the higher Medicare Part B premium came out of it.

→ Do this: don't spend a bigger raise before it's official, and when the real number does land in October, check whether the new Part B premium (announced around the same time) is going to eat into it before you build a budget around the headline figure.

Your turn: have you or anyone in your family ever gotten an overpayment notice from Social Security? Hit reply and tell me what happened — and what you wish you'd known going in.

And if this helped, forward it to someone who'd want the heads-up. That's how we look out for each other.

Talk Tuesday,

— Ellen Marsh, Editor, Retirement Shield

Retirement Shield is educational information only — not financial, tax, or legal advice. We will never ask you for an account number, Social Security number, password, or payment.