It’s Not Easy Being Dead
An eight year old typo is still haunting a woman in Tennessee. Laura Todd says that when a woman died eight years ago, a mistake was made in typing in the dead woman's Social Security number. Ever since, Todd has been informed that she is dead. This has made her life an unliving hell, so to speak.
She said her problems started when someone in Florida died and her Social Security number was accidentally typed in.
Todd said she thought the problem had been straightened out, but when she went to refinance her house in 2002, “SunTrust called and said, ‘Your credit report says you're dead.’"
She straightened that incident out, but in 2006 the Internal Revenue Service refused to process her return.
"The IRS says I’m dead. Everybody says I'm dead,” she said.
She said being dead off and on has made everyday life a hassle. She said her bank closed her credit card account and attached a note of sympathy: “Please accept our condolences on the death of Laura Todd.”
She said the last straw came recently when the IRS once again refused to let her file her taxes electronically because she's dead.
She said that at one point it was funny, but now it’s getting old.
“I'm tired. I've been fighting this for eight years, and it never ends,” she said. “I'm very much alive, and would like to live out my life in peace without having this problem."
The IRS said it would research the problem and try to get it straightened out. Social Security said it has updated its computers and that the fix should also fix the problems with her credit reports.
Think about this for a moment. This is a simple typo that should have been resolved in – at most – a few phone calls and maybe a couple of mailings. It has been dragging on for eight years.
And there are people who are agitating to have the same government take over health care. Do you really want these folks in charge? Really?
By martian, February 17, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
Maybe she shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get it straightened out. If the IRS won’t accept her tax filings then she basically doesn’t have to pay taxes either – the IRS doesn’t expect dead people to have an income and even if they did, if they won’t accept her 1040, they won’t know anyway.