Chino Valley man erroneously declared dead by Social Security
CHINO VALLEY, AZ (AZFamily) — Patrick Fish is alive and well, but the Social Security Administration recently erroneously deemed him dead.
“My mom had passed away in November of last year, so they said they confused me with her and thought that I was my mom and marked me as dead,” Fish said.
With that death report, Fish lost access to his own money.
“I actually went to the store to buy food, and my bank card was denied,” he said.
Fish said he also lost access to his health insurance and noted Social Security attempted to claw back a monthly payment.
“At first I was kind of laughing, but as things progressed, I started taking it more serious, and now I’m kind of worried,” he told On Your Side. “I need food. I need to pay bills that are due. I don’t know what I’m going to do next month if I don’t have my check coming in or if they still think I’m dead.”
The Social Security Administration says its records are “highly accurate.“ According to the agency, of the millions of death records reported annually, less than 0.3% have to be corrected. But that amounts to thousands of people, including Nina Radkiewicz, who was also declared dead on Social Security’s death master file.
It took weeks for her to unravel the mess.
“I called the bank, and they said, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a problem with your account. You’re deceased,’ and I was like what?” Radkiewicz told On Your Side in December. “It’s scary. You go into panic mode.”
In a recent news release, SSA acknowledged that “instances when a person is erroneously reported as deceased to Social Security can be devastating to the individual, spouse, and dependent children. Benefits are stopped in the short term which can cause financial hardship until fixed and benefits restored, and the process to prove an erroneous death will always seem too long and challenging.”
The agency says if it happens to you, go to your local social security office. Be sure to have at least one current form of identification with you.
“We’ve been hearing about long wait lines for our members and being able to prove who they are,” said Dana Marie Kennedy, Arizona state director of AARP.
Fish experienced those long waits. After On Your Side got involved, SSA contacted him directly to fix the problem.
“You really know how to get results,” Fish said. “I will have my health insurance back on the first. Thank you for your time and help.”
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