Pam Johnson got an email from her bank about her husband’s death. The Social Security Administration deducted funds from their account. The problem: her husband, Ned Johnson, is still alive. From Danny Westneat for the Seattle Times:
“We recently received notification of LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s passing,” it began. “We offer our sincerest condolences …”
At first she figured it was a scam — her husband, after all, was sitting right there. But then the bank got to the point.
“We know this is a difficult time, and we’re here to help,” the bank wrote. “We received a request from Social Security Administration to return benefits paid to LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account after their passing.”
“There’s nothing you need to do — we’ve deducted the funds from LEONARD A. JOHNSON’s account.”
Uh oh. It itemized how $5,201 had been stricken from their bank account, on the grounds that Ned wasn’t justified to get those benefits — because he was dead. That was for payments he’d received in December and January.
After several weeks, they were able to get Johnson revived in the SSA database, but they still don’t know why he was marked dead to begin with. Whatever the reason, it should be obvious why it’s important to measure twice and cut once.
