I called the 800 number yesterday and the person seemed to be a good one (I've talked to some beauties in the last 2 1/2 years). The rep looked through my file, reiterated that the payment processing center has had it since June 24th and then told me someone in the Baltimore office began working my file this past Tuesday.

I'm guessing that's a good sign, but I have no idea what all is involved in what they do. I have no offsets, no workmen's comp or anything like that and it's straight SSDI, no SSI.

This wait is killing me... still nothing in the bank account and no letter. Does anyone know what they actually do in Baltimore and how long it usually takes? Since the Social Security people said they started working on it, it's been a week.

I got my letter at the beginning of last May, didn't see a dime until late July? I think....Baltimore had it, Baltimore sat on it, Baltimore held it because the lawyer fee was coming directly out of it, and he had 60 days to request a higher fee than the agreed upon, state determined amount (he didn't, good thing or we would have had a serious problem), then they got around to processing it and giving me my years of back pay. I didn't even get my letter telling me all the details of the payment/payments until late July, because even tho they had printed it, someone had it sitting with my file waiting for the lawyer to have his chance to ask for more. Looks like most people got much more prompt service than I did, but you might not want to hold your breath just yet.

Also, if it is a big chunk of back money, they DO NOT take income tax out of it, yet you may end up owing money, depending on your overall financial situation. So before you decide what to do with all of it, look into the tax aspect and put that money aside, or next April will be a really rude awakening.

Thanks for sharing your experience, winic1. I'm not going to lie, that sounds horrible and I am praying it doesn't happen to me. With the back pay, I'm going to have an accountant ammend previous tax returns to include it to avoid a huge problem in April. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Contact your attorney. Make him/her work for his cut off YOUR backpay.
The attorney will be able to find out (or he/she may already know) if there is a serious backlog of direct deposit payments in your state.