‘Your Case is delayed because you complained to Congress’

I was told that contacting my congress person has delayed my claim processing. Is this true?

I am switching from SSD and SSI on my own record to DAC. My case falls into collateral estoppel and they need to do a manual entry. My claim was decided on 8/27 and sent to the processing center for adjudication. The payment center is very opaque about what they do and it’s even more opaque when a manual entry is being done. There is no paper trail to figure out what part of the process they are in.

On 11/21, I contacted my congress person to see if they could help move things along. That same day, my portal updated to say, “you are on step 4 of 4. We have made a decision and you will receive a letter in 10-15 days.” I never received a letter, so I called the local office.

The representative told me that the computer system is extremely outdated and crashes when it runs into special circumstances such as mine. I have made this worse by complaining to Congress. He told me “don’t expect that letter to ever come,” and “I have no idea how long you will have to wait.” He said it is still “processing” and the message on the portal about this letter means nothing.

I’m living off of $370 a month and have two kids. It’s brutal. After switching it will be $1700. Every day, I’m worried we won’t make it, and now I feel horribly guilty about trying to nudge things along.