Just got email saying important information added to my SSA and needed to login. Thought of posting this in Humor...

[SorellaLaBefana]

You have a new message at my Social Security. You may log in to your account to view new Message Center items.

Checking VirusTotal it passed as legitimate SS notice, with valid links.

So I went to the ssa.gov website, where I discovered that it is not a 24/7/365 thing as was greeted with

Please try again during our regular service hours (Eastern Time):

Day Service Hours
Monday-Friday 4:15 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
Saturday 5:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Sunday 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Federal Holidays Same hours as the day the holiday occurs.
If you need immediate assistance:

You may call us Monday through Friday: 8:00AM - 7:00PM

https://secure.ssa.gov/RIL/SiView.action

This is a WEBSITE we are talking about! The whole point of which is that it is available all the time, even when an office or business is closed.

You CANNOT make this up =^ ? ^=

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If you don't know what VT is, here is the link:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload

I *never* (well, except when I don't) click on email link or visit an unfamiliar website without checking it out in VT first which scans the link with almost 100 virus/malware checkers.

No, it doesn't take very long.

[TurboDem]

1. You might want to clear your cookies and cache and try again.

I've had the exact same thing happen to me and I figured it was something important because I don't communicate with Social Security a lot. I called to tell them that I couldn't log in to their website because I was getting that message, "Please try again during our regular service hours (Eastern Time):

Day Service Hours
Monday-Friday 4:15 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.
Saturday 5:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Sunday 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Federal Holidays Same hours as the day the holiday occurs.
If you need immediate assistance:

You may call us Monday through Friday: 8:00AM - 7:00PM"

They told me to clear my cookies and cache and try again and it worked.

[SorellaLaBefana]

3. Thanks. Will try that

Might also try using another browser (this was from Opera)

Thank you again.


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Also, thanks for not like the 'self delete' reply accuse me of trying to sell AI virus malware—apparently because they were unfamiliar with VirusTotal (which I mention whenever I can to cut down on the number of people being scammed)

[SorellaLaBefana]

7. Sadly, this failed

and led to the whole login.gov/id.me can of worms.

As I cleared the cache in a different browser (Floorp) presumably on Monday will be able to use Opera to login to ssa.gov during normal working hours as the login info will still be in that browser's cache.

Was certainly worth a whirl!

Truly, thank you for trying to help!!

[moniss]

5. This question came up on Reddit over 8 years ago

and the least stupid response was this:

"When you design a (IT) system, you say that it will have certain parameters for availability - for example that you guarantee 99.99999% up time in core business hours. Now, there are reasons why you might not want to guarantee availability during particular hours - infrastructure needs maintenance, there might be processes such as batch jobs or back ups that need to happen which might affect the availability of the service, and if the service does go down you need people to fix it (who might not be available equally at all hours).

So you agree the Service delivery parameters, write up an SLA, and go about your day.

In the case of government, they might be going an extra cautionary step in realising that if the site wasn't 100% functional when some random member of the public expected it to be, there'd be all sorts of headaches and questions asked, and staff shuffled around, and reports written. So then they go that extra step and make it really explicit to the "customer" that the service will only be available at certain hours.

Yeah, it's clunky, they could probably do better but then they'd raise your taxes and you'd complain about that instead."

[SorellaLaBefana]

6. Lighten Up People. I was just sharing something I thought darkly amusing

And I appreciate the suggestion on how to proceed.

What I do *not* appreciate is (since I innocently mentioned a link-scanning site) being accused of as I put it in replying to the second self-delete poster:

But, no, what I found dark humor in was getting a message from SSA saying that I needed to check important new information and that when followed the link found that the website self-reports as only being operational during normal business hours...

BTW, you can have VT self-scan: This is also amusing.

Was accused by the [now other] self-delete poster of simply pushing a scammy virus site.

VT may be scammy (Especially as I think it is now run by MicroSoft) my point is that I've used it for years, and it has saved me several times. There are other link-check sites, but that's the one I use.

[Wonder Why]

8. I never click on links. I either use my preset bookmark for the site or manually

type it in. Much safer. But in any case, I also got rejected with a "something went wrong error".

[Historic NY]

9. If you signed up for auto deposit, paperless contact

you got this message telling you about the checks this month and the cola.

[ampm]

10. SSA

I get emails from ss and it take me to a secure site. I have a two-tier sign-in. Now I sign in with better security.

[Skittles]

11. that account has never been available 24x7

onlines have to be down for IT updates to occur