Of 126 Social Security overpayments that auditors pulled for review, 68 notices followed the agency’s own rules and 58 did not. That is the 54 percent and 46 percent split in a September 1 report from the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, which looked at the letters SSA sends when it says a beneficiary was paid too much.

The report, titled “Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Overpayment Notices” (number 152407), found that SSA “issued overpayment notices that complied with policy for 54 percent of the overpayments we reviewed.” The sample was drawn from the roughly 1 million overpayments the agency established in fiscal year 2023, according to the full report, which projects about 469,000 problem notices across that group. The audit covers retirement, survivors and disability insurance payments, not Supplemental Security Income.

What the faulty notices left out

The 46 percent that fell short had four kinds of problems, according to the inspector general’s summary. Some notices did not include the policy-required information explaining how and when the overpayment happened. Some did not explain the person’s right to ask for reconsideration or a waiver. Some had inaccurate overpayment amounts or reasons, and some contained conflicting language.

The report quotes SSA policy that a notice must state the right to request reconsideration of the overpayment decision and the right to request a waiver of recovery. The audit found notices that left that language out, even though policy calls for it.

What a missing waiver line does and does not mean

The audit examines how SSA wrote its letters. It does not say that a letter without a waiver paragraph removes the right to ask. SSA’s waiver form, SSA-632, Request for Waiver of Overpayment Recovery, is on the agency’s site for anyone who agrees SSA overpaid but believes they “did not cause the overpayment” and cannot afford to repay it. The page says SSA “will stop recovering the overpayment until we make a decision on your request.”

Waiver and appeal are two separate routes. A waiver concedes that the overpayment happened and asks SSA not to collect. A reconsideration, requested on Form SSA-561, disagrees with the decision itself.

A letter with no waiver language still leaves the reader choosing between a waiver and an appeal, and the response window matters. The Social Security Check Protection Kit includes the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection (SSA-561, SSA-632 and SSA-634) and an overpayment response worksheet.

Get the overpayment forms and response worksheet for a notice with no waiver language →

What SSA agreed to fix

A second part of the audit looked at 125 cases where someone asked SSA to explain an overpayment. The summary says only 37 percent of those requests were processed correctly, and the 63 percent with errors included staff misusing a tracking indicator and SSA “issuing deficient explanation notices and not documenting the requests as required by policy.”

The inspector general made six recommendations, and SSA agreed to carry them out. They are aimed at the process that produces the letters:

• Require staff to use templates when preparing overpayment notices, where possible.
• Add controls that alert employees to likely errors before manually prepared notices go out.
• Review and update the system-generated notices so they carry the policy-required information.
• Add controls so employees apply the explanation-request indicator correctly.
• Add controls so employees complete the record screen for explanation requests according to policy.
• Clarify what information employees must put into that record when they document a request.

The report contains no dollar figure for the overpayments reviewed, and the summary does not say when the fixes will be in place. A person holding a notice today is therefore getting a letter produced under the old process.

Reading a notice against the audit

The form’s page gives no filing deadline. It says to send the completed form to a local Social Security office, and the agency’s national line is 1-800-772-1213, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The four problems the audit named give a reader a way to size up a letter. Does it say how and when the overpayment happened? Does it state an amount and a reason that fit the person’s own records? Does it describe the right to ask for reconsideration or a waiver? Does any sentence in it contradict another? A letter that fails any of those is a reason to call SSA and ask for an explanation, which is the very request the second half of the audit examined.

Responding to an overpayment letter

The free route starts with SSA’s own forms and its national number, 1-800-772-1213. Anyone with an overpayment letter should note the date on it, the amount SSA says was overpaid and the reason it gives. The waiver form’s page lists no filing date, so any window the letter itself states is the one to work from.

It also helps to write down the call itself: who was spoken to, the date and what was said about stopping collection. If the letter lacks the explanation or rights language that policy requires, that is worth saying plainly on the call, and the inspector general’s report number, 152407, identifies the audit.

For a response that lays out both routes side by side, The Social Security Check Protection Kit pairs an overpayment response worksheet with the SSA-632 waiver form, the SSA-561 reconsideration form and the SSA-634 form.

Get the SSA-632 and SSA-561 forms with the overpayment worksheet →

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the inspector general and Social Security pages linked above.