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What Happens When the Government Thinks You're Dead? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff. You should know, a production of I
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Brian, there's Jerry
0:15
Speaker 1: over there. Jerry's not eating anything today. Chalk there is clear?
0:21
Speaker 1: And did you just do that as a coaster? Yes,
0:24
Speaker 1: I don't want to make a chinky sound every time,
0:27
Speaker 1: Like okay, I thought, I don't want that. I want
0:30
Speaker 1: this now, I get it. Did you hear that? You
0:33
Speaker 1: didn't hear anything? No, I'm I said everyone. Josh just
0:36
Speaker 1: folded up his notes and put his can of cola
0:39
Speaker 1: down on that. And I've never seen you do that,
0:42
Speaker 1: And I thought you were trying to preserve this cheap.
0:46
Speaker 1: This thing is tougher than okay. So it was a
0:49
Speaker 1: sound thing. Sure, it's it's a sound dampening technique. Can
0:52
Speaker 1: look at us after all these years, just came up
0:55
Speaker 1: with that up in our game. Um so, Chuck, do
0:59
Speaker 1: you remember we did a Social Security number episode? Did we?
1:03
Speaker 1: I thought, so? You don't remember that one. It was
1:06
Speaker 1: one of those ones where you're like, my eyes are
1:09
Speaker 1: going to bleed because this is so boring. But it
1:11
Speaker 1: turned out to be pretty interesting. It was one of
1:13
Speaker 1: those remember that. But we should give a little bit
1:15
Speaker 1: of a refresher on social security numbers. Okay, yeah, here's mine.
1:19
Speaker 1: Oh you're gonna give your your to eight seven, nine four. No,
1:23
Speaker 1: I don't even because what if I just accidentally said
1:26
Speaker 1: someone else's like made one up that? Yeah, and some
1:31
Speaker 1: dudes listening, it's like, dude, how'd you know Todd? It's
1:37
Speaker 1: always Todd. I don't know. So social Security numbers, get
1:41
Speaker 1: this everybody. They first started being issued in November of
1:45
Speaker 1: nine and the Social Security Administration was created to administer
1:52
Speaker 1: a new deal program of federal benefits, things like welfare
1:56
Speaker 1: or retirement benefits, Medicare UM. The entire reason any of
2:02
Speaker 1: us originally were given a Social Security number was to
2:06
Speaker 1: track our lifetime earnings and to um determine how much
2:11
Speaker 1: we'd put into Social Security so that when we retired,
2:14
Speaker 1: they could determine how much we should get out in retirement.
2:17
Speaker 1: That's why everyone has a sofial security number. And because
2:20
Speaker 1: there are nine digits UM, there's something like a billion
2:24
Speaker 1: different possible combinations, and we're about halfway towards using up
2:29
Speaker 1: the sow security numbers. Interesting but but probably gaining fast.
2:33
Speaker 1: We are starting to gain much faster than we were before.
2:35
Speaker 1: A good point, but we still got plenty of time.
2:38
Speaker 1: But because of this um, social security numbers get retired
2:42
Speaker 1: when you die, which we'll get to. But originally, when
2:47
Speaker 1: when you were given social Security number, that was it.
2:50
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant for anything else but to track your
2:52
Speaker 1: earnings and to figure out your retirement. Right. Yeah, not
2:54
Speaker 1: like when you get to go to get a haircut
2:57
Speaker 1: basically and they ask you for your Social Security number. Yeah.
3:00
Speaker 1: The seventies, the federal government said, okay, there's a couple
3:02
Speaker 1: of other things that you should really have your sol
3:04
Speaker 1: Security number for a passport, um, if you go to
3:08
Speaker 1: open a bank account, that was a new one too.
3:11
Speaker 1: I'll buy that. Um. But then, like you said, like
3:14
Speaker 1: as computers came along, now everybody asks what it's become
3:18
Speaker 1: an identifier in an authenticator And that is really bad.
3:22
Speaker 1: That is not what we should be doing with social
3:24
Speaker 1: Security numbers. It really not only that, but the phone
3:29
Speaker 1: numbers and everything and addresses. It just annoys me. And
3:31
Speaker 1: I'm not like a conspiracy guy. It's not like I think, like, oh,
3:35
Speaker 1: what are they going to do with this? It just
3:37
Speaker 1: annoys me. Well, and I can't get a haircut without provide.
3:41
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have cash in my hand, you have scissors.
3:44
Speaker 1: Can we just do this right? Can we do it
3:46
Speaker 1: like Floyd style? Yeah? You know, but it annoys me.
3:51
Speaker 1: But even if you take away the annoyance, companies have
3:53
Speaker 1: proven time and time and time again that they're not
3:56
Speaker 1: to be trusted protecting your so Security number because to
4:00
Speaker 1: authenticate you saying who you are who you say you are,
4:04
Speaker 1: they've got to have your SOI Security number on file.
4:07
Speaker 1: And when somebody hacks into their databases, they get your
4:10
Speaker 1: SOI Security number. All of your information is right there,
4:13
Speaker 1: and it's become a real problem. But it's also become
4:16
Speaker 1: a real problem living a modern life without giving out
4:20
Speaker 1: your SO Security number. Right. So we say all this
4:23
Speaker 1: to point out that if for some reason, you didn't
4:26
Speaker 1: have a Social Security number any longer, it would be
4:29
Speaker 1: tough to navigate life. And that actually happens to some people. Yeah,
4:34
Speaker 1: if you've seen the movie Brazil, Oh, is it like this?
4:38
Speaker 1: You never saw Brazil? It's it's sort of this in
4:42
Speaker 1: a future dystopian world, but you know, basically like it's
4:48
Speaker 1: it's bureaucracy at its best of someone who's you know,
4:53
Speaker 1: dead or not dead, and the government mixes it up.
4:55
Speaker 1: Is that what Brazil is about? Yeah? I did not
4:58
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because
5:00
Speaker 1: we would have heard from people. It's a yeah, it's good,
5:03
Speaker 1: right it is. And you should go listen to the
5:06
Speaker 1: movie Crush episode on Brazil with Jonathan Colton. Okay, yeah,
5:10
Speaker 1: I didn't know that one. That one slipped past me.
5:12
Speaker 1: I wasn't talking to you, but sure, you're welcome to listen. Thanks.
5:17
Speaker 1: I'm part of everybody. I had to go to the
5:19
Speaker 1: Social Security Office recently to get a card because of
5:23
Speaker 1: this job in our new company. Really, yeah, I had
5:26
Speaker 1: to prove, you know whatever, that I'm alive. You didn't unemployable.
5:30
Speaker 1: I guess you didn't. Just give him your passport. I
5:33
Speaker 1: couldn't find my passport because I'm in between houses right
5:36
Speaker 1: now and it was buried somewhere. Okay, but you do
5:39
Speaker 1: have it because we're probably going to Toronto this year.
5:42
Speaker 1: I do have it. I did find it kind of
5:44
Speaker 1: after I went to the Social Security Office. But all
5:47
Speaker 1: that was just to say that if you think the
5:49
Speaker 1: d m V is a pit of despair, just go
5:53
Speaker 1: to the social Security want to it's not fun. I
5:56
Speaker 1: really don't want to know. So, um, okay, you can
6:01
Speaker 1: imagine how bad it is when everything's just hunky dory
6:04
Speaker 1: and you just need a copy of your card. That's
6:06
Speaker 1: all you needed. Right For some people, some poor SAPs
6:10
Speaker 1: out there, they are thought by the government and listed
6:14
Speaker 1: by the government as having died. And that is a
6:18
Speaker 1: big problem if you're alive. Yes, because again you need
6:22
Speaker 1: your Social Security number for everything to start with. And
6:25
Speaker 1: then secondly, because we have enough Social Security numbers to
6:29
Speaker 1: go around, Like I said, when you die, you're so
6:33
Speaker 1: security number gets retired with you. They hang in in
6:36
Speaker 1: the rafters of your local NBA franchise. That's exactly right.
6:39
Speaker 1: If you look really closely, they're all up there. But um,
6:44
Speaker 1: that's that is a problem for somebody who gets listed
6:47
Speaker 1: as dead on what's called the death master file. Do
6:51
Speaker 1: I need to say it now? Even somebody listening to
6:55
Speaker 1: the very first stuff you should know right now, they
6:57
Speaker 1: know what you're saying. Here's a bunch good band names
7:00
Speaker 1: in here, but death master files pretty good. So uh,
7:04
Speaker 1: It's also called the Social Security Death Index, but death
7:07
Speaker 1: master files way better. I think you would agree. It
7:09
Speaker 1: depends on who you're talking to. I think genealogists typically
7:12
Speaker 1: call it the S S d I. Everybody else calls
7:15
Speaker 1: it the death master file. That's what I saw, you
7:17
Speaker 1: know why, because they don't know how to party, or
7:19
Speaker 1: they get their own little weird party going on. Oh yeah,
7:22
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. Um. Yeah, you gotta look
7:25
Speaker 1: at people differently sometimes. I was trying to think of
7:27
Speaker 1: the bumper sticker. Genealogists do it blank in the in
7:32
Speaker 1: the archives. Genealogists do it with their d NA, with
7:36
Speaker 1: their dead ancestors. It's two bumper stickers. Just having ellipses
7:43
Speaker 1: had be kind of fun. So, uh, all right, where
7:47
Speaker 1: were we the d MF Al right, it's it was
7:49
Speaker 1: established the same time the Social Security numbers were back
7:53
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, and then it took all the
7:55
Speaker 1: way until nineteen eighty before the public could even see
8:00
Speaker 1: this list, right right. There was a Freedom of Information
8:03
Speaker 1: Act that was filed back in UM and there was
8:07
Speaker 1: a lawsuit in the federal court said you know what, yeah,
8:09
Speaker 1: this is this is public information. You have to publish this.
8:12
Speaker 1: And there's actually like a master death Master file that's
8:18
Speaker 1: called the New Newmandent and that's like everything, and that's
8:23
Speaker 1: the that's the one that the death master File is
8:26
Speaker 1: derived from, the public version of it is the death
8:28
Speaker 1: master file, right which, when you die, there a bunch
8:33
Speaker 1: of ways that your name can get to the s
8:36
Speaker 1: s A, the Social Security Administration. Sometimes it's a funeral home.
8:40
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's from like a hospital. Sometimes it's from your family, um,
8:45
Speaker 1: because it's the family's responsibility ultimately to report it. But
8:49
Speaker 1: most of the time the funeral home is the one
8:50
Speaker 1: that actually does is like a service. I wouldn't have
8:53
Speaker 1: known that. But I also saw, um, well, now you know, um,
8:57
Speaker 1: there's probably some poor stuff. You should know a listener,
9:00
Speaker 1: our condolences, who's dealing with this right now? It's your
9:03
Speaker 1: responsibility to go report this to the Social Security Administration. Yeah, okay,
9:09
Speaker 1: that's sad. I also saw that your bank, the postal
9:13
Speaker 1: service some other randos are legally allowed to report your
9:17
Speaker 1: death as well, so as the post off post person
9:20
Speaker 1: to saying like I haven't picked up their mail in
9:23
Speaker 1: like three weeks, they're dead to me, I think I
9:25
Speaker 1: should just report this. I don't. I don't know I could.
9:28
Speaker 1: I could not find the procedure from that anything other
9:32
Speaker 1: than a couple of good sources mentioned the postal service
9:36
Speaker 1: as a legal place, the legal entity that can report
9:40
Speaker 1: your death to the Feds. Alright, so why do they
9:43
Speaker 1: want this Death Master File? Of course, if you have
9:46
Speaker 1: paid UM, well, the government needs to know if you're
9:50
Speaker 1: not around anymore. It's kind of that simple. There's a
9:53
Speaker 1: couple of reasons why. Yes, they need to know, because
9:56
Speaker 1: you get a little dough They can't have your sobsecurity
9:58
Speaker 1: number out there. They need to know that you're deceased
10:02
Speaker 1: UM because they don't want to be paying UM income
10:07
Speaker 1: tax refunds if somebody starts following them fraudulently. They don't
10:11
Speaker 1: want people opening bank accounts in your name. They want
10:13
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're listed as dead. And so
10:17
Speaker 1: that's what the Death Master File does. It kind of
10:20
Speaker 1: serves as the storehouse for all the people in America
10:24
Speaker 1: who have been dead basically since the sixties, but it
10:26
Speaker 1: goes as far back as nineteen thirty six or thirty seven,
10:29
Speaker 1: which is surprisingly more than a hundred million people. Yes,
10:33
Speaker 1: but they think that there's maybe up to sixteen million
10:36
Speaker 1: dead people missing from this list. It's not it's not perfect.
10:40
Speaker 1: We'll spoil now. Well, I guess we should then follow
10:44
Speaker 1: that statement by saying there are tens of thousands of
10:46
Speaker 1: people on that list who should not be on that list,
10:48
Speaker 1: right exactly, But before we get to there, um, this
10:51
Speaker 1: Death master File originally was so Social Security could track
10:55
Speaker 1: who was dead and who wasn't, so they could determine
10:57
Speaker 1: who to pay Social Security Administration benefit out to the survivors.
11:01
Speaker 1: Get this, did you know this? If you're in America
11:03
Speaker 1: and you're the recipient, you're the survivor of somebody who
11:06
Speaker 1: gets so Security, you get a cool two hundred and
11:09
Speaker 1: fifty five dollars to help bury them. Yeah, that's when
11:12
Speaker 1: I said you get a little dough that I meant little,
11:14
Speaker 1: a little dough. Yeah, maybe like one of the fancy
11:18
Speaker 1: handles on the casket would be covered by that. I
11:22
Speaker 1: don't even think you can get cremated for two hundred dollars.
11:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even think they'll leave you
11:27
Speaker 1: in a ditch out back for two hundred dollars. A
11:30
Speaker 1: sky BURI will cost more than that. Maybe that try
11:33
Speaker 1: State crematorium would take your two hundred fifty dollars. But
11:36
Speaker 1: that's it. Do you remember them? Oh? Sure? Yeah? Evil?
11:41
Speaker 1: So uh like you said mistakes are made. And this
11:44
Speaker 1: is where it turns slightly. Brazil. There was an investigation
11:48
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven and they actually named grave mistakes,
11:52
Speaker 1: which is hysterical by Scripts Howard News service. And what
11:56
Speaker 1: they did was they took uh this master file from
12:00
Speaker 1: three different years two thou two thousand eleven. They created
12:05
Speaker 1: a computer program to basically just compare them to see
12:09
Speaker 1: what they came up with, and that they found uh third,
12:13
Speaker 1: almost thirty two thousand living people who were listed as
12:17
Speaker 1: decease and ninety eight or two thousand eight that were
12:20
Speaker 1: then taken off that list after they realized that they
12:22
Speaker 1: goofed up two thousand eleven. So these people had spent months, years,
12:27
Speaker 1: maybe um listed as dead. And here's the problem. It's
12:31
Speaker 1: bad enough if you go to apply for Medicare because
12:34
Speaker 1: you've retired or social Security benefits and the government says denied, UM,
12:40
Speaker 1: you're dead and you're listed as dead because as far
12:43
Speaker 1: as the government's concerned, if you're on this, you're dead
12:46
Speaker 1: to them. That's bad enough. But remember that Freedom of
12:51
Speaker 1: Information Act UM lawsuit that opened the thing up to
12:54
Speaker 1: being published publicly. The reason why that suit was filed
12:59
Speaker 1: is because the business community said, hey, we can really
13:02
Speaker 1: use that thing there. It's basically it would be like
13:06
Speaker 1: a big do not take checks from these people list
13:09
Speaker 1: for all dead Americans. Because if somebody comes to us
13:13
Speaker 1: and wants to open a bank account, wants to get
13:16
Speaker 1: an insurance policy, wants to get a car, wants to
13:19
Speaker 1: get a job, it doesn't matter, wants to do something
13:22
Speaker 1: where they could take us for a ride, if they're
13:25
Speaker 1: a fraud, then if we had this list to check against,
13:29
Speaker 1: like social Security numbers or names or whatever, we could
13:32
Speaker 1: root out fraud and we could defend ourselves from identity
13:35
Speaker 1: theft and the fraud that's perpetrated by it. And so banks,
13:41
Speaker 1: insurance companies, car dealerships, cable companies, employers, everybody, other government agencies.
13:49
Speaker 1: They all barbers, they don't forget them. They all use
13:53
Speaker 1: this death Master file, which is available publicly to check
13:57
Speaker 1: your applications against. And if the government it says that
14:00
Speaker 1: you're dead, it says that on this file, whether it's
14:03
Speaker 1: right or wrong, you're dead. And that's a whole lot
14:07
Speaker 1: of problems for you. We're gonna get into those right
14:10
Speaker 1: after this things chop cho stop. So before we broke,
14:41
Speaker 1: I was talking about that. Uh, that scripts um investigation
14:46
Speaker 1: and there was an inspector of General Support in two
14:48
Speaker 1: thousand and eight that kind of pulled back the curtain
14:51
Speaker 1: on this stuff, and Social Security said, uh, yeah, that's
14:56
Speaker 1: about right. There's there's a lot of people tens of
14:59
Speaker 1: thousands that we think are dead and aren't dead, but
15:02
Speaker 1: they're they're success rates pretty good. Yeah, and he said,
15:05
Speaker 1: they said, but we're at a ninety nine point five
15:08
Speaker 1: nine rate of accuracy, which is not too bad for
15:12
Speaker 1: a government bureaucracy. That's really good. And they said that
15:17
Speaker 1: of the time. Can you can fix it in just
15:19
Speaker 1: a year, just a hellish year, Yeah, not too bad. Um.
15:26
Speaker 1: And so they basically admitted two being a government. Uh.
15:33
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock them too much because it
15:35
Speaker 1: feels like everyone's always, you know, knocking government work. But
15:39
Speaker 1: they're basically saying like, yeah, man, these names are miskeeds
15:42
Speaker 1: or these numbers are miss keyeds. Sometimes it happens, yeah,
15:46
Speaker 1: pretty much. So, Um, the thing is that point for
15:50
Speaker 1: one error rate, that's tens of thousands of people every year.
15:55
Speaker 1: There's like two point seven million people added to this
15:58
Speaker 1: list every year who die in America, right, so it
16:02
Speaker 1: adds up to a lot of errors. The thing is
16:05
Speaker 1: the Social Security Administration UM. So they take their deathmasterfile,
16:10
Speaker 1: they hand it over to the National Technical Information Service,
16:14
Speaker 1: and they're the ones who distributed to all the insurance companies,
16:17
Speaker 1: the genealogy websites. I think ancestry dot com publishes it. UM,
16:22
Speaker 1: the yeah, insurance companies, everybody who wants to do a
16:26
Speaker 1: background check on you. They all get their their versions
16:30
Speaker 1: of this from them, the National Technical Information Service. But
16:34
Speaker 1: part of the agreement to get this from them you
16:38
Speaker 1: have to pay for it, is that you have to
16:40
Speaker 1: keep your d MF up to date. Because if you
16:44
Speaker 1: just buy one every once in a while UM, and
16:47
Speaker 1: the Social Security Administration finds an air on and updates
16:50
Speaker 1: their file, if you don't go get the new file,
16:53
Speaker 1: your old file is still going to have that error.
16:56
Speaker 1: And that's when it becomes problematic for the people who
16:59
Speaker 1: are listed as deceased when they try to go get credit,
17:03
Speaker 1: and it kind of has a tendency to spread once
17:06
Speaker 1: it's out there. Yeah, So, like I said, sometimes it's
17:10
Speaker 1: being mis keyed. UM. One. I think they said like
17:12
Speaker 1: one out of every two hundred is just from clerical error. UM.
17:17
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be like, Um, a family member goes
17:22
Speaker 1: to report to death and they accidentally make a mistake
17:25
Speaker 1: where they might end up being on the death list. Yeah.
17:28
Speaker 1: I don't know how that happens, but it does happen.
17:31
Speaker 1: There are people like Don Pilger human error, married du Bord,
17:35
Speaker 1: who who apparently married du Board just gave up. She
17:39
Speaker 1: She's like, my husband can get credit cards still, I'm
17:41
Speaker 1: just gonna live off of it. Uh. Sometimes you this
17:44
Speaker 1: one woman named Candice Atkins just accidentally clicked deceased on
17:48
Speaker 1: a tax return on an electronic filing, and that was it.
17:52
Speaker 1: Can you imagine now? I can't believe there's not an undo?
17:56
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I was looking at me that she had submitted.
17:59
Speaker 1: I guess you could probably undone it in the moment,
18:01
Speaker 1: but she didn't realize it and submitted it. Right, But
18:03
Speaker 1: you should still be able to undo that, you would
18:05
Speaker 1: think so. Um. And then there are some weird things,
18:09
Speaker 1: these uh anomalies that you dug up. Um. More than
18:13
Speaker 1: of false listings made in two thousand seven were from Illinois. YEP.
18:19
Speaker 1: It sounds like a hiccup in the system to me,
18:21
Speaker 1: I hiccup in the system or a super lazy data
18:24
Speaker 1: entry person. I think. Yeah, Uh, more than two million
18:29
Speaker 1: Americans were falsely listed as dying on the fift and
18:33
Speaker 1: that was just an internal policy, is to use the
18:36
Speaker 1: fifteenth as a default value when they didn't know at
18:40
Speaker 1: the middle of the month. Sounds good to me. Um,
18:42
Speaker 1: And I guess that was just the question of not
18:44
Speaker 1: going to the trouble of verifying the information, right so um.
18:49
Speaker 1: And it can happen the other way too, you can
18:50
Speaker 1: be I think at least six million dead Americans are
18:55
Speaker 1: labeled as alive, which is a huge problem because you're
18:58
Speaker 1: you're just you're information is out there ready to be
19:01
Speaker 1: abused by the nefarious. Well, no, that's the opposite. If
19:06
Speaker 1: you're if you're listed as deceased but you're still alive,
19:10
Speaker 1: your information is being published and can be used for
19:12
Speaker 1: identity fraud. If you're actually dead and not listed, if
19:17
Speaker 1: somebody knows that you're dead and not listed, they can
19:20
Speaker 1: use your stuff to to perpetrate fraud against the government. Yeah,
19:23
Speaker 1: that's what I was saying. Yeah, sixty seven thousand of
19:26
Speaker 1: those people of those numbers were used to report three
19:29
Speaker 1: billion dollars in income between two thousand and six and
19:32
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, and that's a lot of text return refunds,
19:38
Speaker 1: so fraud. Yeah, so it's a problem both ways, where
19:41
Speaker 1: either you're dead and you're not listed on there, or
19:45
Speaker 1: you're not dead and they listed you anyway. And like
19:50
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier, this, once this information gets out there,
19:53
Speaker 1: because there's so many different entities getting this list, once
19:58
Speaker 1: it's out there, it's days out there, it's very tough
20:01
Speaker 1: to go around to everyone and and get this information changed.
20:05
Speaker 1: Even once you get it changed with the Social Security Administration,
20:09
Speaker 1: because while it's a requirement to keep your your list
20:12
Speaker 1: up to date, if you're a subscriber, there's no enforcement
20:15
Speaker 1: to it. There's nobody who comes along and says, let
20:18
Speaker 1: me see your list. Oh it's not a to date,
20:20
Speaker 1: give me give me ten dollars that you're fine. There's
20:24
Speaker 1: nobody enforcing it. So once it's out there, it's very
20:28
Speaker 1: tough to undo. It takes forever, uh well less than
20:32
Speaker 1: a year on average supposedly. So there are a lot
20:36
Speaker 1: of horror stories, um for what this can due to
20:39
Speaker 1: someone's life. Um, this one person Rivers, what's the first name,
20:45
Speaker 1: Judy Rivers. Judy Rivers Rivers cuomo Um. Police actually detained
20:50
Speaker 1: Judy Rivers from using because she used a debit card,
20:54
Speaker 1: her own debit card at a Walmart at Walmart Plus.
20:56
Speaker 1: She also had a mountain dew bottle size lab in
21:00
Speaker 1: her pocket. Uh. But in like it seems like all
21:05
Speaker 1: of these cases. It ranges from stuff like, um, your
21:09
Speaker 1: insurance gets all messed up, or your maybe disability checks
21:13
Speaker 1: or your Medicaid payments, or you're trying to get a
21:17
Speaker 1: home loan or trying to get a credit card, like
21:19
Speaker 1: anything that you can think of where social Security number
21:22
Speaker 1: might help. You can't get a haircut. You should see
21:24
Speaker 1: how long the hair is on these people. Even if
21:27
Speaker 1: you have cash, they won't do it. The Rivers ended
21:30
Speaker 1: up living out of her car for six months. Yeah,
21:32
Speaker 1: she had just a really bad time of it for
21:35
Speaker 1: five years. Um and at first she didn't know what
21:38
Speaker 1: was going on because she was frozen out of her
21:40
Speaker 1: bank accounts. Because this is something we said like like
21:44
Speaker 1: you you can't get future loans, you can't get future
21:47
Speaker 1: insurance policies, you can't get future credit. But also the
21:50
Speaker 1: stuff that you already have, your current bank accounts, all
21:54
Speaker 1: that stuff gets frozen because you're listed is dead and
21:58
Speaker 1: so that comes up on the computer and your account
22:00
Speaker 1: gets frozen. And even when you show up and say, hey,
22:03
Speaker 1: it's me, you know me, the teller can't do anything
22:06
Speaker 1: about it. The bank can't do anything about it. It's
22:08
Speaker 1: it's done. And now you've just been pitted against the system. Yes,
22:15
Speaker 1: and it's like there's no door you can go knock
22:18
Speaker 1: on and say, hey, we can clear this up in
22:22
Speaker 1: just a few minutes. I'm clearly alive. You just click
22:25
Speaker 1: the few little things you need to click to get
22:27
Speaker 1: my life back. Because the c US government it's not
22:30
Speaker 1: nearly that easy. So I guess, said Chuck. That brings
22:33
Speaker 1: up what to do, because there actually are procedures in place,
22:36
Speaker 1: Like we said, the Social Security Administration says this is
22:39
Speaker 1: not fully accurate. Anybody gets this list needs to keep
22:41
Speaker 1: updating it as we update it. I think they released
22:44
Speaker 1: an updated list weekly. They don't even tell you though.
22:48
Speaker 1: You find out the hard way almost always. That's a
22:50
Speaker 1: big one. Yeah, it's not like they say, by the way,
22:52
Speaker 1: we found an error. Um, because they don't know. They
22:55
Speaker 1: don't know you're alive. So I actually called the Social
22:58
Speaker 1: Security Administration. I did because I wanted answers. You didn't
23:03
Speaker 1: go to the office no, I didn't know. It was
23:04
Speaker 1: a little laterward. It wasn't cowardless, it was laziness. So, UM,
23:09
Speaker 1: I was talking to like just the the guy who answered,
23:12
Speaker 1: and he knew exactly what I was talking about, knew
23:14
Speaker 1: all the procedures. But I asked him, I was like,
23:16
Speaker 1: do you guys ever uncover this yourselves? Or is it
23:19
Speaker 1: when people come to you that you know there's a mistake.
23:21
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, when people come to us. So supposedly
23:24
Speaker 1: there's all these reforms in place and all that, but
23:27
Speaker 1: I think still for the most part, when an error
23:29
Speaker 1: is uncovered, it's because you found it out. But even
23:32
Speaker 1: if they do find it out, yes, what you said
23:35
Speaker 1: is true, they don't inform the person, which is kind
23:38
Speaker 1: of a violation of the UM the Privacy Act, right,
23:43
Speaker 1: I would think so from what I understand, it is
23:46
Speaker 1: like anytime your confidential information is breached and made public, UM,
23:51
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be informed about that. So the s
23:53
Speaker 1: s A should be sending out letters. As far as
23:55
Speaker 1: I know, they do not. I love this quote in
23:58
Speaker 1: here UM under the section on what to do, Like
24:01
Speaker 1: the Social Security Administration is trying to correct this, and
24:05
Speaker 1: there's a quote from someone who works there that said
24:09
Speaker 1: that sometimes they'll go out and see if old Americans
24:11
Speaker 1: are really still alive, and it it says this, we
24:14
Speaker 1: go to medicare and see if anyone hasn't been to
24:17
Speaker 1: medicare for three years, and if they haven't been, we
24:21
Speaker 1: try to go out and make a phone call to
24:23
Speaker 1: call them and see if they're you know, still here.
24:29
Speaker 1: And the interviewer was like, are you drunk? That's what
24:32
Speaker 1: it sounds like. That was the follow up question. Oh man,
24:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, they, I mean supposedly because of things like that.
24:39
Speaker 1: Scripts Howard News Service investigation in two eleven sixty minutes
24:43
Speaker 1: did a big one and I think this is right
24:46
Speaker 1: up there, Alley, Yeah for sure. Um, yes, it is
24:50
Speaker 1: very sixteen minutes kind of story. Like the truth of
24:52
Speaker 1: what you just have ran through me like a bolt. Um.
24:55
Speaker 1: But the Social Security Administration has finally kind of started
24:59
Speaker 1: to be responsive and they are supposedly undertaking reforms, including
25:04
Speaker 1: having investigators try to root this out themselves, which ironically
25:07
Speaker 1: they're relying on other government databases like this guy said
25:11
Speaker 1: Medicare to check their records against. They've stopped taking reports
25:16
Speaker 1: from the state and now only except um direct reports
25:20
Speaker 1: from people. But that in itself opened up another problem
25:23
Speaker 1: because they went back and cleared out the records of
25:27
Speaker 1: like five million Americans whose deaths have been reported from
25:31
Speaker 1: state databases, so that six million went to something like
25:35
Speaker 1: eleven million of dead people who aren't on there. Now,
25:38
Speaker 1: are they actually recommending that you pull your credit report
25:43
Speaker 1: three times a year? Yes? Really? Yes, that seems like
25:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, you're not like that affects your credit.
25:52
Speaker 1: I don't know if that one does. I know it's
25:55
Speaker 1: free for sure, but I don't know if it affects
25:57
Speaker 1: your credit or not. But yeah, so you get access
26:00
Speaker 1: to your the credit reports from the three big bureaus, right,
26:03
Speaker 1: are you gonna do that? You have you set up
26:05
Speaker 1: calendar reminders? No, I'm going to now like once a
26:08
Speaker 1: quarter the rest of your life to make sure you're
26:10
Speaker 1: not listed as dead. I haven't had time today yet.
26:13
Speaker 1: It seems like if you're an active consumer in the world,
26:16
Speaker 1: you would find out very quickly, very quickly, um, without
26:19
Speaker 1: having to do that. Yeah, that script service though. When
26:22
Speaker 1: they found the like thirty four thousand people who have
26:25
Speaker 1: been listed as dead, they tried to contact as many
26:28
Speaker 1: of them as they could, and they said about half
26:30
Speaker 1: of the people were well aware that they were listed
26:32
Speaker 1: as dead names through nightmare struggles, but strangely like half
26:37
Speaker 1: had no idea what they were talking about. So it's like,
26:39
Speaker 1: what kind of life do you have to live to
26:42
Speaker 1: not be aware of that? Because you you or I
26:45
Speaker 1: would come up against it within a week or a
26:47
Speaker 1: month or something. It seems like like there would be
26:49
Speaker 1: something that came up where it's like, wait a minute,
26:51
Speaker 1: but like it says this information isn't is incomplete, or
26:55
Speaker 1: it says you're dead or something like that. We find
26:57
Speaker 1: out pretty or just to go get money out of
26:59
Speaker 1: a cash machine, it might say, sorry, your pen doesn't work.
27:03
Speaker 1: But I think the recommendation is in addition to finding
27:06
Speaker 1: out that your listed is dead, there's also a lot
27:09
Speaker 1: of other stuff that that you can kind of keep
27:11
Speaker 1: tabs on by looking at your credit report three times
27:15
Speaker 1: a year, once every four months. Yeah, And they say
27:18
Speaker 1: the real solution for all of us would be if
27:21
Speaker 1: every company on the planet doesn't require Well here's the thing, though,
27:26
Speaker 1: they can't legally require your Social Security number two open
27:30
Speaker 1: up or start a telephone in your name at a home,
27:34
Speaker 1: but they'll ask for it, and if you refuse to
27:36
Speaker 1: give it, like you may not be able to get
27:39
Speaker 1: at all, or you may just have a really really
27:40
Speaker 1: hard time. Yeah, they can refuse to do business with you.
27:43
Speaker 1: And that's the crux of the problem because that de
27:46
Speaker 1: facto means that you need to play ball, whether you
27:50
Speaker 1: want to give your Social Security number out or not
27:53
Speaker 1: to if you want that internet service or that cable service,
27:57
Speaker 1: or you want that haircut, you're gonna have to a ball. Yeah,
28:01
Speaker 1: it was I remember growing up. It was a like
28:03
Speaker 1: I remember I had a Social Security card and I
28:07
Speaker 1: remember my mom being like, you gotta put that in
28:09
Speaker 1: your destroyer. Remember, don't touch it ever. If somebody comes
28:13
Speaker 1: near your your drawer, you shoot them with with this gun. Yeah.
28:16
Speaker 1: It was crazy. And now it's just like I'd probably
28:19
Speaker 1: give out my Social like twice a month. Right. But
28:24
Speaker 1: but because of those breaches, because so many people have
28:27
Speaker 1: your Social Security number now, and because hackers have gotten
28:30
Speaker 1: really good at getting into things like UM I think
28:32
Speaker 1: it was Experience or TransUnion who were hacked in two
28:36
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen U UM that that was it was not
28:42
Speaker 1: only I read not only did it basically just totally
28:45
Speaker 1: erode the public's trust and credit bureaus to keep our
28:49
Speaker 1: stuff private, like they were the ones who were supposed
28:52
Speaker 1: to be unhackable. And I think a hundred and thirty
28:55
Speaker 1: seven million social security numbers made it out into the
28:59
Speaker 1: why old from that hack um that that that not
29:03
Speaker 1: only eroded trust in the credit cars, it was the
29:06
Speaker 1: beginning of the end for using social security numbers like
29:09
Speaker 1: we do to authenticate or as identify irs companies. Some
29:13
Speaker 1: are moving away from that now, right, yeah, because they're
29:15
Speaker 1: getting sued and they're getting fines and they just realized
29:18
Speaker 1: they can't keep this stuff protected. The problem is no
29:20
Speaker 1: one knows what's next. A lot of people have talked
29:23
Speaker 1: about like blockchain, but nobody understands blockchain, which, by the way,
29:27
Speaker 1: we should totally do a blockchain episode, um, but everybody's
29:31
Speaker 1: kind of like, it's probably gonna be blockchain, but first
29:33
Speaker 1: time to go figure out what blockchain is, and then
29:35
Speaker 1: we'll figure out how to do social security numbers through blockchain.
29:39
Speaker 1: I'm sure in some offices they're like, you know, the
29:40
Speaker 1: old barcode on the back of the neck seems silly,
29:44
Speaker 1: but surewood work. Have you seen Brazil? Should we take
29:48
Speaker 1: a break? Oh yeah, let's all right, let's take another break,
29:51
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk a little bit about the rest
29:54
Speaker 1: of the world right after this and things and chop
30:01
Speaker 1: cho so chuck, We're going around the world in eighty
30:29
Speaker 1: days in our nice little balloon. Actually, I said, we're
30:33
Speaker 1: going to talk about the rest of the world. We're
30:34
Speaker 1: only going to talk about one more place in the world. Hey, man,
30:37
Speaker 1: I got Canada. Oh yeah, the UK. Okay, Basically, anywhere
30:43
Speaker 1: there's a country with a bureaucracy, in a country where
30:46
Speaker 1: people die, there's going to be someone erroneously listed as dead.
30:50
Speaker 1: All right, so let's go to India. Okay that in India.
30:53
Speaker 1: It's not always an accident. Uh, sometimes it's an error.
30:57
Speaker 1: But sometimes, um, you can do what they call quote
31:00
Speaker 1: killing people on paper end quote um, in order to
31:05
Speaker 1: say their property is mine, to lay claim to something legally,
31:10
Speaker 1: you can, uh, you can do so especially, I mean
31:13
Speaker 1: they don't. It's not legal, but it's something that happens. No,
31:16
Speaker 1: you can bribe an official who will say, yeah, okay, yes,
31:20
Speaker 1: this person is dead, thank you for reporting their death.
31:23
Speaker 1: Here is their land or cousin or whoever. Well, supposedly
31:28
Speaker 1: in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Um, it's become
31:33
Speaker 1: a real problem there. Um And there was a man.
31:36
Speaker 1: There is a man named Lal Bahari who in nineteen
31:41
Speaker 1: seventy six, at the age of twenty two, found out
31:43
Speaker 1: he was listed as dead and his uncle. Did his
31:47
Speaker 1: uncle do this or did his uncle just get the land?
31:49
Speaker 1: And uncle's family, Uh, his uncle's family, they're the one
31:53
Speaker 1: that that purposefully listed him as dead just so they
31:56
Speaker 1: could get the land. He went to go get a
31:58
Speaker 1: business loan. He was a loom and he went to
32:00
Speaker 1: get a business loan. And to get a business loan,
32:03
Speaker 1: he needed documentation of his identity. When he went to
32:06
Speaker 1: go get that, the local records office is like, you're dead.
32:11
Speaker 1: And it took him seventeen years to undead himself. Yeah,
32:15
Speaker 1: fortunately for the world. He had a great sense of
32:19
Speaker 1: um absurdity of humor like yes, but also like the
32:23
Speaker 1: humor in absurdity, like he he realized, like this is
32:26
Speaker 1: so preposterous, and he really used that as motivation to
32:30
Speaker 1: make huge moves. Yeah, he would answer the phone um
32:35
Speaker 1: as dead person, which is uh talk is that he
32:40
Speaker 1: would pronounced I think he would answer the phone like that.
32:44
Speaker 1: He organized the Uttar Pradesh Retalk Singh which is Udra
32:48
Speaker 1: Pradesh Dead People's Association. And it seems like really brought
32:52
Speaker 1: a lot of like attention to this through like almost
32:56
Speaker 1: like public absurdist public demonstrations e shamings too, Yeah, like
33:01
Speaker 1: parades of dead people walking around on the steps of
33:05
Speaker 1: like the government buildings and stuff like that. And finally
33:09
Speaker 1: he did have his death overturned legally. Um, did you
33:13
Speaker 1: see whether or not he got his land? I didn't
33:15
Speaker 1: see that. Actually a great question. I didn't even think
33:19
Speaker 1: about that, but yeah I I did not. I don't know,
33:22
Speaker 1: but two people, um, because of his efforts in that
33:28
Speaker 1: area of India where had their deaths overturned. Yeah, that
33:33
Speaker 1: was just in one year even which why I think
33:35
Speaker 1: is cool about him as he founded this organization and
33:39
Speaker 1: got his life back in ninety four but still stayed
33:43
Speaker 1: on as the you know, the driving force behind the
33:46
Speaker 1: Udapradesh Dead Person's Association and won an Ignoble prize for it.
33:51
Speaker 1: Not bad. We did an episode on that too, You
33:53
Speaker 1: remember the ignobles Man. That was a long time ago,
33:56
Speaker 1: ye yea. So one more thing I we never really
33:59
Speaker 1: actually he said what to do if you end up
34:02
Speaker 1: listed incorrectly is dead on the death Master file, start
34:05
Speaker 1: answering the phone is dead Chuck, Yeah, exactly, shame the government. Also,
34:11
Speaker 1: the other thing you're supposed to do first is go
34:13
Speaker 1: in person to your local Social Security Administration. And by
34:17
Speaker 1: the way, this is information directly from the s s
34:19
Speaker 1: A to me to you, because I called them. The
34:24
Speaker 1: guy said, just bring a driver's license at passport and
34:26
Speaker 1: we'll handle it from there. And I was like, wait,
34:28
Speaker 1: that's it. He's like, yeah, you know, the information matches,
34:32
Speaker 1: your picture matches. That's all you need. And he said
34:35
Speaker 1: and by handle it, you'll mean nothing will happen here.
34:37
Speaker 1: That's right, right, And I go, so do you give
34:39
Speaker 1: the person? So they give you a letter saying this
34:42
Speaker 1: person is alive, they were listed as deceased by mistake,
34:46
Speaker 1: give them their credit or whatever. Um, we love you,
34:49
Speaker 1: So Security Administration And I said, do you do you
34:52
Speaker 1: give the letter then once they prove it or um.
34:54
Speaker 1: He's like no, once the file is updated, then we
34:57
Speaker 1: typically send the letter out. And I was like, how
35:01
Speaker 1: long is that? You know? And it's weeks easily, if
35:04
Speaker 1: not months before you're going to get a letter. But
35:07
Speaker 1: if you find out the first thing you want to
35:09
Speaker 1: do go to your local SO Security office with your
35:11
Speaker 1: passport and or your driver's license and say surprised. Yeah,
35:16
Speaker 1: I saw that one person even had to have a
35:18
Speaker 1: note from their doctor verifying that they were indeed alive. Weird,
35:23
Speaker 1: weird life. That must be weird country. So, uh, if
35:28
Speaker 1: you want to know more about the death master file,
35:31
Speaker 1: you can go look it up. It's kind of interesting actually,
35:33
Speaker 1: as far as bureaucracy goes. And since I said bureaucracy,
35:36
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this um.
35:42
Speaker 1: This is a follow up on the rape Kits episode,
35:44
Speaker 1: which we got a lot of amazing and sad stories
35:47
Speaker 1: from that one. Uh. This is about the money. The
35:51
Speaker 1: money's because remember on the show we said that you
35:54
Speaker 1: know you don't you have to pay for that stuff
35:59
Speaker 1: for treatment. Yeah, apparently you can get money back, which
36:02
Speaker 1: we meant to go back and re record a section
36:04
Speaker 1: and did not. So this is by means of following
36:07
Speaker 1: up on that. Hey, guys, a longtime listener, first time
36:10
Speaker 1: writer finished the episode on rape Kits and realize I
36:13
Speaker 1: could offer some information that will hopefully bring some peace
36:16
Speaker 1: of mind. I work as a medical biller for a
36:18
Speaker 1: hospital in the Midwest. Part of my job is processing
36:22
Speaker 1: the sexual assault claims that come in at our hospital.
36:24
Speaker 1: We have a program for those who present to the
36:27
Speaker 1: hospital UH after a sexual assault. We in partner with
36:31
Speaker 1: the state, cover all the charges that result from the
36:34
Speaker 1: initially our visit, and the patient has given a voucher
36:37
Speaker 1: for any relevant follow up care that they may need
36:39
Speaker 1: over the next three months. Is awesome, it is, and
36:42
Speaker 1: we realized that a lot of states do this after
36:45
Speaker 1: we had recorded and published the show. I'm so glad,
36:49
Speaker 1: this person wrote in this Yeah, it is good to know.
36:52
Speaker 1: We also take steps to ensure that the patient will
36:55
Speaker 1: never see a bill or be contacted by our department
36:57
Speaker 1: regards to their visit to reduce any retraum mitization. I'm
37:01
Speaker 1: the point person for this process here handle all the
37:04
Speaker 1: claims personally. I'm not sure how many hospitals implement this program,
37:07
Speaker 1: but I hope this helps you all know that at
37:10
Speaker 1: least here we do as much as we can to
37:12
Speaker 1: alleviate any unnecessary burden from our patients during the stressful
37:15
Speaker 1: and sensitive times. Great thanks for all you guys do.
37:18
Speaker 1: You have transformed many days years spent in a cubicle
37:21
Speaker 1: into opportunities to learn. Keep doing the great work, and
37:25
Speaker 1: that is from Maria. Thank you very much. That was amazing. Yeah, Maria,
37:30
Speaker 1: thanks for doing that job too. That's tough stuff. That
37:33
Speaker 1: was the antithesis of another email we got, who basically said,
37:38
Speaker 1: regarding your little soapbox about how society should take on
37:41
Speaker 1: that cost, keep your politics to yourself because I disagree.
37:45
Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw that one. It was
37:47
Speaker 1: a bad one and I just wanted to say that
37:49
Speaker 1: that person is a butt head. Oh no, wait, maybe
37:52
Speaker 1: I did see that. I couldn't even bring myself to respond.
37:55
Speaker 1: I think I did, and I did respond. Oh what
37:57
Speaker 1: did you say? I don't remember. Did you tell him
37:59
Speaker 1: they're hecko jump in a lake? There? Um? Well, if
38:03
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, whether we
38:05
Speaker 1: think you're a butt head or a saint, it doesn't matter.
38:08
Speaker 1: We still want to hear from you, you can go
38:11
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38:15
Speaker 1: You can also send us a good old fashioned email,
38:17
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38:20
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