OPINION:
Social Security not only allows people to assume the identities of others and use dead people’s numbers; the program also “kills” people who are still alive without them knowing it (“A dead teen’s Social Security number stayed active for 24 years and $284,000 in fraud,” Web, Aug. 31).
I am living proof.
In 1994, I discovered I had been “dead” for 20 years after getting a copy of my credit report, which read: “The holder of this Social Security number died in 1974.” Except for this “slight” error, everything else in my report was correct.
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As an orphan, I had received Social Security payments while attending college full time. During the 1980s, Congress stopped this practice.
The snafu occurred when I notified Social Security in 1974 that I had graduated. Instead of entering the code for graduation, someone entered the code that I had died. I did not suspect anything was wrong when the checks stopped.
No one complained that I was paying Social Security taxes into a “dead” person’s account. I would have thought the Social Security Administration or the IRS would have at least inquired whether I had made a typographical error on my tax forms.
As a naval officer, I had security clearances from 1983 to 1999. To this day, I am amazed that neither my home nor office was stormed and searched by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service or the FBI.
Within a few weeks of contacting Social Security, I got a signed letter of apology that officially “resurrected” me. Hallelujah.
Luckily for my wife and children, I had not really died before 1994. If I had, my wife would have been told, upon applying for Social Security widow’s and orphans’ benefits, that she had been married to an impostor who had used a dead person’s Social Security number.
My credit reports now reflects that I am alive once again. Next time you get your credit report, double-check it to make sure you are alive.
Cmdr. WAYNE L. JOHNSON
Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (retired)
Alexandria, Virginia
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