Parker: Shutdown giving bad guys a good shot at winning

I confess that I’m not very good at managing life’s infrastructure — keeping abreast of the minutiae, filling out forms, paying bills, checking all the boxes for which God invented the personal assistant. (If you’re interested, see my email address.) First, I’m always on deadline. Second, I’m always on deadline. Third, bureaucratic operations require a pace and patience with which I am unfamiliar.

Recently I dialed up a bank and, after fumbling several times through its tree of options, none of which pertained, I finally pecked a number and was told that my wait time would be 28 minutes. No, I said to no one, it won’t be — because I have 28 things to do in the next minute. I hung up.

Thus, a better-organized person might have wondered sooner why she no longer was allowed to access her Social Security account. I did wonder, briefly, but then wandered off to slay other dragons. A couple of months passed. A hungrier person might have gladly spent hours on the phone arguing with an agent about the missing checks that were due in her bank account. But, probably because I’m still employed and Social Security isn’t my sole income, I was able to postpone any reckoning. I simply assumed, the government being government, things are slow.

Finally, having received no money since being told to expect my first check in October for six months retroactively, I called a local SSA representative, who told me the money went out in October to a Green Dot account.

A what? I don’t have a Green Dot. Is that 30 or 40 percent off?

Well, it says here it went out in October.

But I didn’t get it.

It says it went to a Green Dot account in October.

You said that already. I didn’t get it. I don’t have a Green Dot. I’ve never heard of Green Dot.

It’s a thing.

It’s not my thing.

Hacked and helpless

Next I called the national SSA number. A very professional-sounding woman picked up the phone and, upon hearing my description, immediately declared a fraud, issued an alert, filed a report with the inspector general, and told me to call the Federal Trade Commission to get information about freezing my credit.

Suddenly, I’m very interested in this problem, which can’t be resolved because the relevant agencies, including the FTC, are shut down. The cobwebbed IdentityTheft.gov website says, “we will resume normal operations when the government is funded.”

Bottom line: Someone hacked into my Social Security account and changed my bank routing and checking account numbers to a Green Dot account that was probably created for that purpose.

By now, you’re likely thinking: What about the truly elderly person who depends on her monthly Social Security check to live? Someone who may not know how to navigate the internet or have an accountant to call? What does the 87-year-old widow do when this lowest form of human life preys upon her limited income?

As it were, I feel lucky. I have a job and resources. I’ll survive — and maybe even recoup the stolen money I earned.

But for now, the U.S. government is little to no help. And the bad guys know it.