When you have a representative payee...
 

Can you no longer have a bank account? ..or are they just for handling your SS payments?

Can I take the $100 cash I have on me right now, and open a bank account for personal reasons?

Welcome gdaddyb77. :Wave-Hello:

Someone will be along to help.

You can have your own bank account.

You can use your money to open a new bank account.

The payee is only responsible for money sent from Social Security, either SSDI or SSI. And they are supposed to manage the funds and pay your bills and not just hand it all to you.

Thanks for replying. What about if I have a huge amount saved in the account from saving and backpay? Is it okay for them to transfer it to my new account, or is that bad? I'm talking about after bills and everything is all paid up.

Huge is a relative term. But if you need a payee it is because something in your medical records indicate some problem with managing money. Could be many different reasons. If the payee pays your small bills and then transfers the huge amount to you to do with as you want, that is not a responsible decision. What is the point of having a payee if they just give you the money? That is not following the payee rules that they agreed to and it is called a conduit payee, just a funnel from SSA to you to make whatever decisions you want, good, bad or otherwise. Why even have a payee?

*admin edit* You seem to think I asked for or signed up for a payee??
$25000 just sitting in the payee's account doing nothing....