Effective Dates: 08/23/2024 - Present Previous | Next

TN 277 (08-24)

GN 02402.235 Intercepting Incorrect International Direct Deposit (IDD) Payments

A. Policy for intercepting IDD payments

To intercept a payment, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (FRBKC) removes it from the payment file before sending the file to the central or processor bank. There are basically two processes for intercepting IDD payments.

1. Intercept request coded on International Treasury Services ITS.gov

An authorized SSA technician at the Office of Earnings and International Operations (OEIO):

  • •

    codes the intercept request on the beneficiary’s ITS.gov record.

  • •

    enters the death or other reason on the Enrollment Status pull-down menu through View/Update.

FRBKC then intercepts the payment based on the entered information. For any reason other than death, the employee must then remove the code from the ITS.gov record after correcting the situation causing the intercept request to avoid subsequent payments automatically intercepted.

When death information has been coded erroneously to ITS.gov for a beneficiary, the death information must be removed from ITS.gov after the beneficiary has been determined to be alive. FRBKC must also be informed, so that subsequent payments will not be intercepted.

a. Example 1

Information to correct the direct deposit coding for a payment was received and input after the cutoff. To avoid having the payment go to someone else’s account, the FBU coded an intercept request on ITS.gov. FRBKC intercepted the payment and returned it to SSA. A prior month accrual (PMA) payment then went out with the corrected direct deposit data. The FBU removed the intercept request from ITS.gov.

b. Example 2

A payment was intercepted with reason “closed account.” The coder input new information to the master beneficiary record (MBR) but forgot to remove the request from ITS.gov, and two more payments were intercepted before the error was corrected. The intercept information was removed from ITS.gov and the next payment went to the new account.

c. Example 3

Romano reported that his spouse had died, but the coder misunderstood the message and erroneously coded the death to Romano’s ITS.gov record. When Romano notified the FBU of his nonreceipt the following month, the FBU removed the death information from Romano’s ITS.gov record, correctly coded the death of Mrs. Romano, and notified FRBKC and OEIO of the corrections. OEIO corrected SSA’s Master Beneficiary Record and released a payment for Mr. Romano.

2. Bank Match

For some countries, FRBKC

  • •

    matches SSA’s payment file against the file of bank data provided by the processor bank;

  • •

    intercepts and returns the rejected payments;

  • •

    intercepts and returns any multicountry payments that have either no country code or an unacceptable country code.

a. Example 1

A Canadian payment is intercepted because the bank code does not match any Canadian bank/transit code on file.

b. Example 2

A payment with prefix 66 shows a country code of C. Since there is no country code of C for prefix 66, the payment is intercepted.

B. Procedure – Request an Intercept

All intercept requests must be coded on ITS.gov. Take the following steps:

  1. 1. 

    Go to ITS.gov and click on View/Update.

  2. 2. 

    Key the ID information for the beneficiary and click on Search.

  3. 3. 

    When the information comes up, click on the pencil for Update.

  4. 4. 

    When the beneficiary’s information page comes up, go to Enrollment Status and select “IDD Stop Payment” from the pull-down menu.

  5. 5. 

    Select the correct reason for the intercept from the resulting pull-down list. If the reason is the death of either the beneficiary or the representative payee, put the date of death in the Event box in YYYY-MM-DD format.

  6. 6. 

    Click on Update.

  7. 7. 

    Click on “Recipient List” at top right to close the record.

IMPORTANT: You must also input the death to SSA’s systems.

C. Procedure for intercepted payments

1. Bank Match rejects

When you discover that a payment has been intercepted (or when you have requested an Intercept), make every effort to correct the direct deposit data. This is especially important when someone reports nonreceipt and you find that the payment has been returned.

Examine the data to see what is needed. A Canadian payment may be lacking the institution number, for example. One digit may have been left out of a Polish account number, making it the incorrect length. The beneficiary may need to give you the full, correct data. The location of IDD coding instructions for each country is on a chart in GN 02402.220D.

If the payment has not yet been returned for a nonreceipt case, you may be able to obtain the correct data when the beneficiary reports the problem. Then when the payment is returned, it will be sent correctly to the account.

2. Payment Intercepted by request

Follow the instructions in GN 02402.235B.

Remove the intercept information from the record on ITS.gov as soon as there are no further incorrect payments to intercept. Otherwise, the beneficiary will continue not to be paid and will go into suspense for incorrect address when the payments are returned to SSA.

3. Erroneous Death correction

If you find death erroneously applied to the record, take the following actions:

  • •

    go to enrollment status on ITS.gov;

  • •

    remove the stop payment code and event date;

  • •

    notify FRBKC to stop any IDD reclamation action on the case;

  • •

    make all inputs to correct the erroneous death information on SSA's systems.

D. References

  • •

    GN 02602.055C Incorrect death records caused by an erroneous death report.

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    GN 02408.700 Erroneous death information involving electronic fund transfer payments.

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    GN 02408.800 Abandon reclamation for electronic fund transfer.

 

To Link to this section - Use this URL:
http://policy.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202402235
GN 02402.235 - Intercepting Incorrect International Direct Deposit (IDD) Payments - 08/23/2024
Batch run: 08/23/2024
Rev:08/23/2024