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How Exactly Do You Prove You're Alive if You're Accidentally Declared Dead? - YouTube
Channel: Today I Found Out
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As with most legal matters, answering the
question of what exactly happens when a person
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is accidentally declared dead varies from
country to country, although, curiously, from
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our research, with some exceptions like a
few instances we found in Canada particularly,
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it seems as if the United States is one of
the few countries where the aftermath of this
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can be long term devastating to the unlucky
individual, even after they get declared alive
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again.
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But to start with, how exactly does one actually
get accidentally declared dead in the first
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place?
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It turns out in pretty much every nation,
most of the time simply via clerical error.
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In modern times, this usually just means a
typo or the like.
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So, yes, particularly for you U.S. citizens
reading this, just go ahead and think about
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that your life could be ruined, or at least
a good portion of it, by a simple typo made
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by some random person at any given momentâŠ
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On that note, although exact figures are hard
to come by, itâs estimated by the Social
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Security Administration that in the US some
seven to fourteen thousand people are accidentally
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declared dead each year.
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Numbers from other nations were seemingly
impossible to come by, but we did at least
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dig out that in Canada from 2007-2013 they
had approximately 5500 people accidentally
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declared dead, or an average of about 900
people per year.
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Given that the United States has approximately
nine times as many people as Canada, this
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would put the equivalent number at about 8,000
people per year, so right inline with the
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low end estimate of the United Statesâ numbers.
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Alright, so a misplaced finger by some worker
at a funeral home, hospital, etc. has now
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accidentally killed you as far as the government
is concerned.
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How do you fix it?
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It turns out correcting such a mistake pretty
much everywhere we looked at, in theory, is
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as simple as walking into the appropriate
government office and letting the fact that
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you just walked into a government office speak
for itself, after of course you provide sufficient
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identification to prove you are who you say
you are.
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For example, in the United States you just
need to visit your local Social Security Administration
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office with one piece of appropriate picture
ID, such as a driverâs license, passport,
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etc. and inform them of the mistake in their
records.
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And, indeed, in reports of this happening
to people in several different nations we
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looked at, this seems to more or less clear
the matter up within a few weeks at most.
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Certainly this few weeks can be a bit traumatizing
and make things difficult in a variety of
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ways, as weâll get into, but itâs more
of a blip, outside of some isolated reports
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from Canada, where for some people the ordeal
dragged on for months, and some not so isolated
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reports from the U.S.
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In fact, the most outrageous report we could
find from Sweden, for example, simply noted
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that the 47 year old Swedish woman was inconvenienced
by having to spend several hours unblocking
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various accounts after the government agency
dutifully apologized for the mistake and had
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it corrected in their system.
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For her trouble, she was awarded 20,500 kronors
(about $2,200).
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Then thereâs the United States⊠owing
to a quirk of the way the Death Master file
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works and the way various entities use it,
as well as previous to a few years ago the
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fact that this file was available to anyone
who wanted to buy it, letâs just say things
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are a bit more complicated, even though getting
declared alive again is actually relatively
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straightforward as described.
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But before we go any further, we should probably
talk about what this Death Master file actually
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is.
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Various nations have their own ways of tracking
this and rules and regulations governing such
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a dataset, but it mostly just comes down to
a file maintained by some branch of the government
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that gets names added to it via reports from
various groups or people about a death.
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In Britain, for instance, a name can be added
by anyone simply by going to the appropriate
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government website and noting a death, as
well as providing appropriate proof of death,
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such as a copy of a death certificate.
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Other sources that donât necessarily have
to include proof of death include reports
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from places like funeral homes, hospitals,
and other such institutions.
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As you can imagine from all this, there is
more than a little room for accidental error
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here, given the wide variety of sources this
information is being collated from, and with
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little in the way of verification occurring
as to the accuracy of everything coming in.
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In essence, these types of systems are fairly
rife for an occasional typo to pop up and
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for no one to notice until the accidentally
declared dead person themselves find out,
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often in traumatic fashion.
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This all brings us around to the United Statesâ
Social Security Administration Death Master
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file.
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It turns out this was never meant to be used
as a definitive record for deaths.
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It was originally put in place in 1936 as
a way for the Social Security Administration
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to help make sure they werenât paying out
benefits to people no longer alive and for
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other use internally.
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In fact, the Social Security Administration
explicitly notes that this data should NOT
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be used as a definitive record of who is alive
or dead in the United States.
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As the Inspector General of the Social Security
Administration in 2015, Patrick P. OâCarroll,
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Jr., stated before Congress, âSSA does not
receive death information for all individuals,
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thus SSA does not guarantee the [Death Master
Fileâs] completeness.â
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Nevertheless, as with the Social Security
number itself, this eventually got coopted
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by various groups who needed a reasonably
accurate dataset of who was alive and who
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was not.
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This all brings us around to why being accidentally
declared dead can be so devastating to an
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individual.
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It turns out that this data is used by many
companies, most pertinent to the topic at
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hand being financial institutions and agencies
doling out various benefits, like retirement
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and the like.
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Once the death database is updated, this information
percolates out to all of these institutions
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automatically.
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And then, even worse, from there percolates
out to other institutions who donât use
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the Death Master file directly, but buy or
share information from institutions that do.
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So, to begin with, upon âdeathâ all government
benefits you may have been entitled to from
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Social Security to a government pension will
be stopped.
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While this may or may not be an immediate
problem for a given person, it turns out that
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as soon as youâre declared dead, itâs
entirely possible that your bank accounts,
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credit cards, and the like will get frozen
and any attempts to retrieve money from them
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by you will be flagged as fraud.
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Depending on the institution, there may or
may not be issues accessing any joint account
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you hold as well.
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On top of this, upon notification of the passing,
everyone you owe money to will suddenly be
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able to claim that money from your estate,
and even potentially do so when their systems
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find out youâre dead⊠because apparently
even being dead isnât a good enough excuse
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to stop paying back your student loans.
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On the plus side, if youâre married at the
time youâre accidentally declared dead,
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your spouse or whoever you named as a beneficiary
on such a plan will be eligible to claim any
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life insurance policy you have in place.
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Unfortunately, this is money they will later
be expected to pay back once youâre proved
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to be alive.
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So not a great perk.
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Being dead, of course, you can also expect
that you may end up losing your job as itâs
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kind of hard to employ a dead person officially,
turns out.
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On that note, youâll also find it exceptionally
difficult to find work during your time as
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a legally dead person.
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At best, youâll have to work for cash under
the table.
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And itâs important to note in all of this,
itâs not uncommon at all for you to be suspected
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of identity theft and possibly even get arrested,
which will also come with its own host of
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problems when the police try to enter your
details into their system to process you.
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Speaking of being arrested for stealing your
own identity, from 1980 to 2013 thanks to
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a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the
Death Master File in the U.S. was publicly
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accessible to anyone who wanted to pay the
fee to the Department of Commerceâs National
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Technical Information Service (NTIS).
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This file includes the personâs name, date
of birth, date of death, social security number,
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whether death is verified or a death certificate
documented, and, up until 2011, also included
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the last known zip code, and zip code where
any death benefit was sent.
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This made it all ridiculously easy for actual
identify thieves to work their magic and try
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to get away with all sorts of shenanigans
in your name, with the immediate few week
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window directly after youâre declared dead
being highly targeted as not every system,
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and maybe not even you yourself, at this point
may be aware youâve been declared dead.
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Thus, if you were one of those unlucky individuals,
when you once again get declared alive again,
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officially, you then got the reward of having
to deal with whatever the identify thief managed
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to do with your good name while you were dead.
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Today, in an attempt to stop the identify
theft problem for the dead or accidentally
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declared dead, only approved institutions
have immediate access to the current Death
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Master file, with a three year waiting period
before the wider publicâs copy of the file
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will show a given personâs death, though
for various other reasons identify theft of
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the recently deceased is still a major problem.
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This brings us around to another systemic
problem with the way the system works in the
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U.S.- the way the file is updated, or not
in some cases.
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The version of the Death Master File that
is downloadable is updated weekly, but only
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the last six revisions can be downloaded directly
and if you want to go any further back than
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that for the full list, you have to order
a copy loaded onto a CD.
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The problem here is that if the institution
updates irregularly, they might completely
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miss the revision that you were actually declared
alive again, with this marked in the file
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with a âDâ indicating your record should
be deleted from any copies of the database
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stored by these various institutions.
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Miss that revision and your name will remain
in these systemsâ databases.
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On top of that, many institutions that donât
use the Death Master File do buy and share
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such information from other institutions,
who may for a time have the erroneous information.
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Thus, it may simply be up to you in all these
types of cases to prove to them youâre once
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again alive, officially.
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And, again, do expect when youâre doing
so that theyâll suspect you of being an
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identify thief because of how relatively common
identity theft of the dead is.
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Also, even if you do manage to convince the
world youâre alive, thereâs always the
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chance that someone, somewhere will get their
hands on an outdated version of the Death
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Master File and accidentally kill you again
in whatever system they use, which in turn
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might get shared around even further, even
potentially to institutions you already proved
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you were alive to, but now may have to do
it again.
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For some people whoâve had this happen,
they note it can be like a game of Wac-o-mole
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for sometimes several years later.
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To be fair, itâs noted that, much like in
most countries we looked at, once youâve
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satisfactory proven to the Social Security
Administration youâre indeed still alive,
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it generally takes only a few weeks at most
to fix in their database, though there are
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exceptions where it sometimes takes a lot
longer.
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Further, the Social Security Administration
will then issue you with an âerroneous death
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case â third party contactâ which you
can use as proof of you not actually being
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dead and not being an identify thief when
dealing with banks, hospitals or any other
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service or person that currently believes
youâre not alive.
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Sometimes even this isnât enough though
and some financial institution especially
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are still noted as being difficult to convince
that youâre not a zombie- again, real identify
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thieves are rather good at forging things,
leading some institutions to be skeptical.
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If this happens, youâre advised to contact
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to
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speak to the institution on your behalf.
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Alternatively, you can always contact your
âlocal congressional representativeâs
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constituent services officeâ if you want
to circumvent all the red tape and have the
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problem addressed directly, though your mileage
may vary with this particular avenue.
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As for how long it take to correct the mistake
in the U.S., thereâs no definitive answer
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but, again, there are documented cases of
people fighting with various institutions
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for years to prove theyâre alive and there
are examples of people dying in real life
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before they were able to fully correct the
mistake.
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A notable case is that of Judy Rivers who
spent seven years dealing with the ramifications
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of being accidentally declared dead, during
which this woman who formerly had over $80,000
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in her bank account alone, along with a rather
good career at the time, upon being declared
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dead became financially destitute, lost her
job and house, among other things.
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In her own words to the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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who were looking into ways in which the system
might be fixed:
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I could never have imagined I would reach
the point of hopelessness, homelessness, loss
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of reputation and credibility, unable to obtain
a job, an apartment, a student loan, or even
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a cell phone.
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Suspected as an identity thief by nearly every
apartment manager or Human Resource Director
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I encountered became a way of life.
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Each time I got into my car I was panic stricken
that the police would stop me and I would
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have to try and prove my identity.
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Another example is that of retired army drill
sergeant Jerry Miller who was accidentally
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declared dead four times, each time resulting
in him having his veteranâs benefits and
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government pension stopped.
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And, no, he wasnât the random victim of
an unfortunate typo four times in a row to
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the Social Security Administration.
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That just happened once.
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His case was one of those where an old copy
of the Death Master File was being passed
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around and simply just kept getting him declared
dead again by the U.S. Department of Veterans
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Affairs.
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Each time heâd prove he was still alive
and it would be fine for a while, until heâd
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once again find himself declared dead by them.
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Miller almost lost his house, suffered failing
health when he was unable to get needed prescriptions
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and received a letter asking him to pay back
around $94,000 dollars worth of benefit cheques
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heâd supposedly fraudulently cashed while
previously being âdeadâ.
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Of course, he was very much alive and entitled
to those cheques but was now in a bit of legal
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hot water over the matter.
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Perhaps the most bizarre story of all though
is that of Donald Miller Jr whose request
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to be declared legally alive was turned down
by a judge.
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This one was not, however, a case of a typo,
but rather a case of a disappearance.
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In a nutshell, Miller disappeared from his
Ohio home sometime in 1994.
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After an investigation, Miller was declared
dead in absentia, his life insurance policy
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was paid out and his Social Security number
retired.
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In 2005 Miller resurfaced and revealed that
heâd fled because he owed around $26,000
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in child support to his ex-wife that he couldnât
afford.
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Unaware heâd âdiedâ, Miller tried to
have the decision overturned so that he could
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get a driverâs license after having got
his life back together only to have the decision
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challenged by his ex-wife.
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It would later turn out that Millerâs ex-wife
couldnât afford to pay back the life insurance
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settlement sheâd received as a result of
his death and that him staying âdeadâ
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would allow her to avoid doing so.
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When the case got to court, because of various
quirks of the law, a judge was forced to rule
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that Miller had left it too long to challenge
the decision, despite his contention that
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he didnât know heâd died.
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So, yes, the judge in this case, knowing Miller
was who he claimed to be and was literally
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standing in front of him, declared him legally
dead anyway.
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So yeah, in short, if you live anywhere and
are accidentally declared dead by your government,
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expect the next month or two to be a bit of
a living hell, but as far as we can find,
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this usually gets cleared up pretty quickly,
with exceptions.
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But if you live in the United States, just
because of some quirks about how the system
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works there, as one Liz Weston of the Denver
Post aptly noted, âIf the Social Security
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Administration thinks youâre dead, you might
wish you were.â
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