These include feigning a medical problem in order to be declared disabled, exaggeration of an existing medical problem that potentially can but in reality does not render the person disabled, continuing to receive payments after having recovered from a medical problem, or continuing to receive payments while working (usually unreported) above the allowable level for those receiving the payments.
It is therefore common for people to believe they must report a neighbor whom they see, for example, climbing on the roof while collecting disability payments, but this is not always the case.
Some medical conditions are truly debilitating and make it impossible or difficult to work if one has them, but are hard to prove against one's own word that one does not have them.
Others who are receiving payments are actually working, but are not reporting their employment and collecting their income in a manner that cannot easily be detected.
[3] The United States Social Security Administration accepts reports from the public for the following types of fraud:[4]