Now, after nearly a month of chaos and backlash, the DOGE plans are dead.

According to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post, plans to force people awarded retirement, disability and Medicare benefits to set up direct-deposit payments online or in person have been canceled after the agency concluded it could vet these transactions for fraud by phone. Those applying for benefits can also continue the process by phone without the need to go online or visit an office in person, according to the Monday memo from acting deputy commissioner Doris Diaz to acting commissioner Leland Dudek.

At the same time, the agency will implement a new fraud-detecting tool to “flag suspect teleclaims based on known, common characteristics of fraudulent claims,” the memo said. Only if an applicant’s phone call is flagged will they be required to show up in person, according to the memo.

The shift amounts to a wholesale retreat by Musk’s team and the Social Security leadership in their bid to dramatically curtail telephone access to services. The changes announced by Dudek in March and pushed by members of the DOGE team would have directed all people filing claims to first verify their identity online or in person. The new system would have removed a phone option, in place for years, which has come to be a mainstay for the 73 million Americans who rely on Social Security for retirement, survivor and disability benefits and Medicare claims.

After lawmakers and advocates warned of consequences for a population ill-equipped to navigate a website or show up to a field office, Social Security in late March backed off the tighter requirements for those with disabilities but said those applying for retirement or survivor benefits would still need to do so online or in person. The agency handles about 9.5 million claims each year, and about 40 percent come in over the phone.

The fraud tool will debut by April 14, the same day some of the phone services were scheduled to end, the memo states. The memo warns the new strategy may lead to the “false-positive flagging of legitimate teleclaims” but says it’s still a better option than limiting phone service for retirees or disabled customers, which would have caused tens of thousands of confused Americans to descend on field offices every week.

“This risk is lower than sending 40,000-plus teleclaims customers to field offices per week for in-person identity proofing,” the memo says, adding that the new plan “significantly reduces risk of potential service disruption.”

The agency published a series of posts on the X social media site Tuesday night that obliquely described the shift. Asked about the changes, a Social Security spokeswoman confirmed that the agency will “allow all claim types to be completed over the phone” and that “SSA will perform an anti-fraud check” on all such claims. Only people whose calls are flagged as fraudulent will have to prove their identity in person, the spokeswoman wrote in an email.

“Telephone remains a viable option to the public,” the spokeswoman wrote.

The whiplash policy proposals and reversals come at a time of crisis for Social Security — reeling from staff cuts and expecting thousands more firings as its phone and in-person wait times skyrocket and its website crashes almost daily. The suggested revisions to phone services have also led to an explosion in scams, as bad actors have taken advantage of the moment to send seniors emails purporting to be from Social Security and instructing them to provide their personal information to verify their identities.

Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement that the phone policy and Wednesday’s retreat had caused “head-spinning chaos” that is “undermining Americans’ faith that Social Security will be there when they need it.”

A White House spokeswoman defended the administration’s record at the agency.

“The Social Security anti-fraud team has worked around the clock in person to improve technological capabilities and they are now able to identify fraud on claims filed over the telephone,” spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement Wednesday. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Social Security Administration is taking bold steps to transform how they serve the public — improving front line customer service, modernizing their technology, protecting beneficiaries and securing the integrity of their programs.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is continuing to push falsehoods about rampant fraud at the agency, a line repeated by Trump and Musk, the billionaire tasked with downsizing the federal government. Most recently, Vice President JD Vance falsely claimed that 40 percent of the people who call Social Security are “committing fraud.”

Vance was misinterpreting a statistic previously published by the agency that said about 40 percent of fraud related to direct-deposit bank account changes is associated with a phone call. What this actually means, as The Post reported, is that about 0.00625 percent of Social Security benefits are lost to direct-deposit fraud each year, with 0.0025 percent lost through calls.

Social Security’s own internal reports and audits have repeatedly found over years that instances of fraud are low: Less than 1 percent of the payments in recent years were determined to be improper. The memo repealing the phone service cuts points this out again. “The agency has assessed cases of widespread fraud in teleclaims and found minimal instances,” the memo states on its first page.

The memo offered few details on the new anti-fraud tool or how the agency will manage to stand it up in less than a week. It stated only that the tool will be launched “with current resources.” The agency, already bleeding employees, is facing a DOGE-proposed 50 percent cut to its IT staff, The Post has reported.

Many of the agency’s best coders, tired of the turmoil, have already retired or left for jobs in the private sector, said a Social Security employee briefed on the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. In particular, the employee said, people who know how to program COBOL — an old coding language that powers Social Security websites and systems — are fleeing, with potentially dire consequences if the agency doesn’t manage to stanch the bloodletting. It will be difficult to finalize any kind of fraud-detecting tool by next Monday, the employee said.

“There is nowhere near enough IT staff left to actually implement changes,” the employee said. “The COBOL team is scrambling. … There’s just so little that can be done at this point.”

Starting Tuesday, emails and trainings began to go out to field staffers informing them they wouldn’t have to curtail phone service after all. Managers told other employees verbally in meetings that the in-person identity verification idea was dead.

“So, back to where it always was,” said one Indiana field office employee. “What a waste of our time.”

As beleaguered employees worked to understand what the vaguely defined fraud detection tool might mean for them, some were hit with an additional puzzling change to how they do their jobs — a new rule preventing communications with Congress or advocates for the elderly and disabled.

An email went out to Social Security technicians on Monday instructing them to “cease all written responses to Congressional inquiries and inquiries from Advocates,” according to a copy obtained by The Post. A similar email went out to employees in other divisions affecting a wide range of staff members, including benefits authorizers, claims specialists and customer service representatives.

The second email, also obtained by The Post, read simply: “Effective immediately, do not respond directly to any public or congressional inquiries.” After a surge in questions, another employee sent a follow-up email clarifying that staffers should continue to pick up the phone if Americans call for help. “It’s my understanding that ‘public’ covers advocates and congressional inquiries, so staff calls can continue for status inquiries,” the employee wrote, according to a copy obtained by The Post. An agency spokesman denied that anyone had been told not to respond to inquiries from lawmakers.

Dudek last week canceled a monthly meeting with disability advocates that has not been rescheduled, advocates said.

Also canceled is a standing meeting that happened on Wednesdays with senior Social Security officials and staffers from the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Management and Budget, which congressional staffers are invited to attend. That has been canceled indefinitely.

Asked about the pause, a Social Security spokeswoman wrote in an email that “SSA is going through a reevaluation of communications and still communicating with the public.”