A Missouri mom who was mistakenly declared dead in 2007 says she has been living a ‘haunting’ nightmare ever since.
Madeline-Michelle Carthen, 52, claims she has struggled to hold down a job, get a mortgage or rent an apartment due to an erroneous social security number error made nearly 20 years ago.
In 2007, she was denied financial aid as a student at Webster University, ultimately forcing her to drop out.
And since then, she hasn’t been able to complete basic life tasks – like rent a car.
‘It messed up my whole life,’ she told KSDK.’ It’s impacted my life, financially. If I wanted to buy a house, that won’t happen.’
Madeline-Michelle Carthen, 52, was mistakenly declared dead in 2007 and has been living a ‘haunting’ nightmare ever since
Carthen has not been able to keep a job, get a mortgage or rent an apartment ever since the government wrongly declared her deceased nearly 20 years ago
‘I got denied my financial aid,’ she told a local NBC affiliate KSDK when she was previously interviewed in 2007. ‘Now, they’re saying, ‘Prove to us you’re not dead.’
As she was preparing for a summer internship in Ghana 16 years ago, she received the startling news that according to her social security, she was dead.
When she found out that her social security number was associated with a deceased person, Carthen laughed – initially dismissing it as a ‘simple mistake.’
She said to the outlet at the time: ‘What do you mean? I’m sitting right here. I’ve been at school over a year and a half. How am I dead?’
But that was only the start of her troubles.
‘It’s like a haunting,’ Carthen added.
Once her Social Security number is processed, she said Human Recourses isn’t able to process payroll and she is typically fired from her job.
‘It’s just a matter before my Social Security number catches up with me, and then they have to let me go … H.R. can’t process payroll,’ she said.
Paperwork and credit reports document her as ‘deceased.’
And Carthen is not alone. Over 12,000 living Americans are wrongly classified as dead every year, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
This is typically due to a simple small typo, which ultimately causes a catastrophic disaster for victims.
Carthen said she’s been dealing with this headache for nearly two decades but nothing has changed.
‘I just want direct answers, and I haven’t been able to get that,’ Carthen said.
In 2007, she told KSDK that she got denied financial aid as a student at Webster University, ultimately forcing her to drop out
When she found out that her social security number was associated with a deceased person, Carthen laughed – initially dismissing it as a ‘simple mistake’
Creighton Cohn, a consumer protection attorney told KSDK that being put on the ‘Death Master File’ can make life impossible.
Once Social Security Administration adds someone, their identity is deleted from places like banks, the IRS, and Medicare.
‘It can really impact every single aspect of your life,’ Cohn, said.
Carthen filed a lawsuit against the Social Security Administration and several other government agencies in 2019 seeking more than $12 million in damages.
The judge, however, dismissed the lawsuit, as the government has ‘sovereign immunity.’
In 2014, a keystroke error resulted in the agency declaring Kosara Mladenovic dead when it was her husband who had passed away.
After declaring her dead, the administration reportedly cut off her monthly benefits, which the family uses to support Mladenovic, paying her nursing home expenses.
To fix the administration’s error, she has to prove she was still alive and this is no simple task. She was told to present a photo showing her holding newspapers with the day’s date on them.
Additionally, she had to present a statement from her nursing home confirming she is a tenant, and present her husband’s certificate as well as his obituary in the local newspaper.
Elder care advocate Gideon Schein told CBS NY that mistakes like this are very difficult to correct.
‘It is much harder to undo a keystroke mistake than it is to do it,’ Schein said.
‘It’s pretty complicated…social Security is our everything. If that gets somehow misused, we’re in terrible trouble, so they’re very careful and I do understand that.’