Died?

December 9th, 2023| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

The other day, People magazine reported on the frustrating efforts of Madeline-Michelle Carthen. For the last 15 years, this poor lady, a Missouri native, has been fighting to prove that she is alive!

She had been anticipating taking part in Webster University’s international intern exchange program in the summer of 2007. But she was never able to attend—or even graduate from college, for that matter—after she was denied financial aid when her Social Security number suddenly listed her as deceased. And that unfortunate set of circumstances has stalled the rest of her life.

Unbeknownst to her until then, her name had been added to the Death Master File (DMF), an internal database that collects records of dead people who have Social Security numbers. Once someone is added to the DMF, the IRS, banks and Medicare cancel their existence. They cease to be alive.

(Apparently, up to 12,000 Americans are wrongfully marked as dead by the government each year._

SSA spokesperson Darren Lutz:

While we are unable to discuss individual cases due to privacy laws, we have contacted Carthen directly to assist with her case.”

The spokesperson added that nearly 3 million deaths are reported to the SSA each year and that their records are “highly accurate.”

Millions of death reports we receive each year, less than one-third of 1 percent are subsequently corrected.”

According to the SSA, a person incorrectly listed as deceased is supposed to bring another form of identification to their local SSA office, and once certified, the agency will offer a “erroneous death letter” to show banks, doctors and others that it was a mistake. Carthen has fought tirelessly to prove she’s alive, but says the “deadly” mistake has never been resolved—and that’s with six “erroneous death letters” that she has requested and received in 16 years.

Over the years, she has contacted four U.S. presidents and other government officials. Nothing doing. She filed a lawsuit in 2019, but that was dismissed after the government said it had sovereign immunity.

The 52-year-old—who has been unable to vote or maintain a steady job for an extended period of time—then changed her name in 2021 and received a new Social Security number, but that didn’t help, either. Her court-ordered new name was misspelled in some government databases, and a wrong Social Security number is listed on her E-Verify database, which employers use to confirm employees eligibility to work.

Her 29-year-old son, Kenneth, has also been impacted.

Carthen:

He’s been having issues going back to college since I can’t sign his Federal Student Aid application because I don’t have a valid Social Security number.”

But, surprisingly enough, this “dead” person has been able to receive disability benefits from the government:

I’m dealing with aortic valve regurgitation and atrial fibrillation. I’m in stage three kidney renal failure. How is it that I can go through these things and they classify me as dead and I’m not, and I’m on disability?”

She is hopeful, but resigned:

Everything has been stripped from me. I’m blocked.”

Hopeless. But there is hope … in God!

I am forgotten as one who is dead, out of heart;
I have become like a broken vessel.
For I have heard the defamation of many;
terror all around;
as they conspire together against me,
they scheme to seize my soul.
But I—in You I trust, Yahweh;
I said, “You [are] my God.”
In Your hand are my times;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my pursuers.
Make Your face to shine upon Your servant;
deliver me in Your lovingkindness.
Psalm 31:12–16

SOURCE: People Magazine