Social Security Administration Says Upstate Man Was Dead

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"He's not dead, he's sitting right beside me," said Ted Trueblood as he looked at his brother, Reamor Trueblood.

Ted is baffled that the Social Security Administration says his 57-year-old brother is dead.

"He's not dead," he said "His wife passed away in December. Not Reamor."

He says the SSA even sent condolence letters to him.

"We are sorry to learn of your recent loss," said Ted as he read the letter addressed to him from the SSA.

They also sent condolence letters to Reamor's deceased wife, Julie.

Ted says the worst part about the mixup was Reamor's bank account was wiped out when the U.S. Treasury reclaimed more than $4700 in payments from the Social Security Administration. His health insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield also was cancelled.

"They just took it all away from us," Ted said.

Ted first noticed the problem when he tried to pay for Reamor's prescriptions.

"The debit card was no good," he said. "It said it has no money in the account."

"I went and talked with Social Security about it and they saw what the problem was and they were supposed to correct the problem," said Ted.

Nearly 3 weeks later Ted says nothing was fixed.

"I wish they'd straighten it out," said Reamor.

"So I figured I'd give you a call," said Ted. "It worked. I had a call from Blue Cross Blue Shield in 3 hours reinstating Reamor's insurance."

Two days after we told SSA about his problem the money was put back in the account. We talked with spokesperson Patti Patterson from Atlanta.

News Channel 7's Dianne Derby said, "A data entry error only takes a second to make but this took weeks to resolve, why?" Patterson replied, "It did unfortunately did take longer than we would have liked to get this corrected. We have been working on this ever since it was brought to out attention. We do have to work with several components and we also work with Medicare to make sure all the records are corrected."

Patterson also apologized for the error. It's an error Ted says was too easy to make and far too difficult to correct.

"It's scary that someone can push a button and make a person dead," said Ted.

Remember any time you have problems with the Social Security Administration you should contact your Congressmen for help. They have staff members dedicated to addressing these issues. For a list of contact information you can call our newsroom at 864-587-4462 or click here.