Pension Payments at Risk

CUCEA, the systemwide group of campus emeriti associations, became aware of a particular theft of a pension payment earlier this month. It appears that the theft may have been accomplished by someone indicating that he/she had forgotten the password and being given authority to change the password, bank to which the pension was deposited, etc. That is, the theft seems to have occurred without any high-tech breach. (Exactly what occurred is not clear at this time, however.) 

What appeared to be a single case of theft now seems to have occurred more widely. Excerpt from a message by the chair of CUCEA:

...There have been further reports of pension checks not arriving because of a security failure at UCRAYS. As a precaution, we strongly encourage retirees who receive pension checks to verify that their monthly payments have been distributed as expected. If your pension check does not arrive as anticipated, please contact UCRAYS and your campus retirement center as soon as possible and let CUCEA Chair Joel Dimsdale know as well (jdimsdale@ucsd.edu).

This situation is also a timely reminder to review and update your passwords. That updating process may be slower for UCRAYS in the near future as it tightens security.

The CUCEA board wrote UCOP January 13, 2026 advising them to:

1. Institute corrective training for RASC (retirement administration service center) personnel.

2. Disable telephone-based requests for password resets. We do understand that this will adversely affect RASC response times until security is enhanced, but it is necessary.

3. Perform a “lookback” on all password change requests since December 1 and communicate with those individuals.

4. Notify all retirees about the possible threats and advise them to take necessary actions.

We will be meeting with UCOP to review progress next week...

Exactly what is being done to reimburse the victims of these thefts is also unclear at this time.