Web posted Friday, March 9, 2001 10:10 a.m. CT

Some Social Security checks lost on way to area recipients

By GREG CUNNINGHAM Globe-News Staff Writer

The monthly check is running late for several hundred Social Security recipients in the southeastern Texas Panhandle.

Ruth Wilson, district manager at the Amarillo Social Security office, said Thursday that March Social Security checks were not received by many recipients in Donley, Collingsworth, Briscoe, Hall and Childress counties because of delivery problems.

"We're not sure exactly what happened," Wilson said. "Our agency and the postal service are trying to trace where (the checks) are, but they have not let me know yet."

The checks generally are split into batches for specific areas, and it appears one of those batches has been lost, Wilson said.

In the meantime, Social Security officials are attempting to replace missing checks. Wilson said workers were in Clarendon and Memphis on Wednesday issuing checks to people who did not receive them in the mail.

Anyone who has not received a check should contact the Amarillo office at 1-800-772-1213 or 324-2241, and a replacement check will be issued in five to 10 days. Recipients with an immediate need for money can go to the Amarillo office at 3501 W. 45th Ave. Suite E between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and a check will be issued on the spot.

Wilson said the loss of Social Security checks is a very infrequent occurrence, but she recommends recipients arrange for direct deposit to their bank account to provide insurance against it ever happening again.

"It doesn't happen very often," Wilson said. "I've never had it happen where I was, and I've worked for the government for 25 years."

http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/030901/new_somesocial.shtml

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), March 10, 2001