YOUNGTOWN, Ariz. — Seven months after her husband passed away, Mary Haney was bewildered to learn that she, too, had died.
The 88-year-old was healthy, warm to the touch and making conversation with family members, but she was dead, according to the government.
Someone at the Social Security Administration made a mistake — one that Haney and her daughter have spent two years trying to correct while bouncing between government offices on a proof-of-life tour.
“Yes, there have been jokes made about it but on the serious end of it, it has really taken a toll,” said Haney’s daughter, Karen Haney-Duncan.
Haney, for the life of her, does not know how such an error could even happen but she does remember how she found out about her own death.
When her husband passed away in November 2021, the 88-year-old sold her home in Phoenix and moved in with her daughter 30 minutes away in Youngtown. A new home meant a new address, which Haney needed to change on her driver’s license.
The long line at the Motor Vehicle Division turned out to be the least of her problems. Haney’s daughter still chuckles about what the woman behind the counter stated so bluntly.
“They told us she was dead,” Haney-Duncan said.
Haney was standing right next to her daughter, but that was still not enough proof for MVD. Employees said Haney needed to get things straightened out with the Social Security office.
So, they drove to the nearest office in Glendale to stand in another long line.
“They [Social Security Administration] gave us a letter saying she was not dead that I could take to [MVD],” Haney-Duncan said.
That letter read in part:
“Mary Haney visited our office today and her identity was verified. She is alive…”
They brought the letter back to MVD, but there was a problem: It didn’t have a certified stamp.
So, they went back to Social Security, waited in line again, got the stamp and headed back to the MVD to wait in an even longer line.
The letter was accepted, Haney got the address on her license changed and Social Security said the weird death error was fixed.
That took a day. A very long day.
Problem solved?
Nope. Haney received a letter this May from the IRS. They refused her tax return because — she was dead. Haney’s accountant sent in the letter she had received from the Social Security Administration. However, this September, Haney’s tax return was rejected again.
The IRS said the Social Security number on the tax return belonged to someone deceased and the account was being locked to prevent identity theft.
Haney thought it was odd the letter was addressed to her. Why would the IRS write to a dead person?
“As easy as it was for her to be declared dead for all the systems, it should be [just as] easy for her to be declared alive,” Haney-Duncan said.
In the summer heat, Haney and her daughter had to visit three government agencies in one day.
Their first appointment was with the IRS.
“When we sat down at his desk he said, ‘You know, I told my wife that I had the opportunity today to resurrect somebody from the dead.’”
The agent also said something Haney had heard before: She needed to get the situation fixed with the Social Security Administration.
For the second time, Social Security promised her the issue was fixed. But there was another office they needed to visit.
Haney’s Medicare premium was no longer being covered by AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System). Instead, the $174 was coming out of her Social Security check.
“Everybody is telling us she is dead but yet she is still collecting Social Security. It does not make any sense,” Haney-Duncan said. “We go to the Department of Economic Security to find out she has been dead in their system from June of 2022.”
The 88-year-old is still waiting on a resolution.
Haney is expecting another letter from the IRS soon and a decision from AHCCCS as to whether they will keep paying her Medicaid premium.
Life, especially at Haney’s age can be difficult. Her daughter often wonders what would have happened if she didn’t have family to help guide her though the complicated process of proving she is still alive.
“She would have been sunk,” Haney-Duncan said. “She would have been dead and still living and just gone under the radar until she really did die.”
In a statement to 12News, the Social Security Administration said:
Privacy laws preclude us from discussing individual cases. We can share that approximately 3.1 million deaths are reported to the Social Security Administration each year and our records are highly accurate. Of these millions of death reports, we receive each year, less than one-third of 1 percent are subsequently corrected. Deaths are reported to Social Security primarily from the States, but also from other sources, including family members, funeral homes, Federal agencies, and financial institutions. If a person suspects that they have been incorrectly listed as deceased on their Social Security record, they should contact their local Social Security office as soon as possible.
Mary Haney, by the way, is still alive and kicking, mostly at bureaucracy.
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