SOCIAL SECURITY 'KILLS' 14,000 AMERICANS PER YEAR !!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Posted: Aug 23, 2011 4:16 PM Updated: Aug 23, 2011 6:30 PM


(CNN) - Advancements in technology have failed to end a distressing pattern where people still alive are declared dead in the eyes of Social Security and have their monthly checks cut off.

Marjorie Louer is a healthy and vibrant 94-year-old, yet the Social Security Administration (SSA) thought she died five years ago.

"I feel alive now, but at one time I didn't," Louer said. "In fact, one young clerk told me in the face that I was dead."

Louer went to her local bank to get some cash, but her ATM card wouldn't work.

When she went inside, a bank officer cut her card up right in front of her and said, "According to our records, you're dead."

Someone inside the SSAA had accidentally typed an incorrect digit while recording the number of a person who had recently died.

Which led the computers to believe Louer was the decedent.

Louer's case is not the first. According to the SSA it happens about 14,000 times a year.

What's worse is when someone is recorded as "deceased," their social security number and address are recorded in the "death master file" that the public can purchase, raising the risk of identity theft for those who have already suffered the ultimate insult of being declared dead.

The SSA told CNN, "Mistakes do happen and there isn't a process where there will be zero mistakes. We try to correct these situations as quickly as we can."

Louer quickly had the mistake corrected and the SSA sent her two months of missed payments.

Both the SSA and the bank mailed her an apology, but the memory of having been killed off remains a bitter one for Louer.

"It's a dreadful experience to go through. You laugh and your friends joke with you, but inside you're feeling pretty sad about it," she said.

The SSA said it could be "nearly" error free if every state participated in a computerized system called "Electronic Death Registration," but only two-thirds of the states do.

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