A Texas woman says she is trying to get her life back together after someone called the Social Security Administration and reported that she had died.
Renee Lavy recently found herself not being able to do her normal day-to-day activities after finding out she was dead, on paper.
Years ago, while traveling, I went to use a credit card and it was declined. I pulled out another card and it was declined also. I paid for my purchase with cash, went to the car and called the credit card companies on their 800 numbers. I was told, bu both, that the cards had been cancelled because I was dead which was news to me. I had to get my wife involved (2000 miles away) to prove that I was not dead. Took three days to come back to life...
ReplyDeleteReminds me of someone else ... the name will come to me ...
DeleteI don't think he had any credit cards, though.
Something must have changed in the twenty five years since my father died. It took me three half-day trips to SSA in order to stop my dad's social security when he died. It was a major pain in the ass and it was not a pleasant task at all. And, I had durable powers of attorney and medical powers of attorney.
ReplyDeleteWhen Lisa's son died 4 years ago, it was the funeral home that notified Social Security. We didn't have to do a thing.
DeleteAh, maybe the funeral home was the issue. My father died in hospice and he had no friends in Texas. The hospice hooked me up directly with the crematorium that serviced most of the funeral homes in the area, so there was not a funeral home involved. Maybe the crematorium did not do the notification.
DeleteI have worked security in SSA offices, about every 2 or 3 months someone would show up who needed to prove they weren’t dead. Normally it was a funeral home that had sent in the wrong SS#
ReplyDeleteI keep telling the telemarketers who bother me that I'm dead. Either that or I tell them that the drunken SOB is around here somewhere and l'll go find him. Then lay the phone down and go back to whatever I was doing. I once had one hang on for fifteen minutes while I searched for myself.
ReplyDeleteI'd just tell them to hang on while I got my checkbook. Then go out for a beer.
DeleteYou need plenty of documentation to prove you are who you say you are, but SS doesn't even require a death certificate. All it takes is a simple phone call to SS to report a death.
ReplyDeleteWhen we allowed government to be this involved in our lives we lost all control of it
ReplyDeleteJD
Clarence Thomas said that as dirt-poor as they were when his grandparents were raising him in Pin Point GA (in the bayous SE of Savannah) his grandfather would neither ask for nor accept any help from any level of government because, "You have to let 'em all up in your business if you do." Would that more people had that old country man's wisdom.
DeleteRemake of "The Night of the Living Dead".
ReplyDelete