How do you convince Social Security you’re alive after they declare you dead? Seattle couple says it’s far from easy

Pam Johnson of Seattle found out her husband, Leonard or “Ned,” had been declared dead when she got a letter from Bank of America on Feb. 19 offering condolences. The note said more than $5,000 in Social Security benefits had been reclaimed from the couple’s joint account.

“I thought it was a scam at first,” she recalled. “It looks like an official Bank of America document, and it’s from their estate department. I started reading through it, and they had several attachments of things we had to fill out, which made me even more suspicious.”

“We” as in Pam and Ned, because Ned was sitting right next to his wife, and he was very much still alive.

“Ned took it from there, since he’s the undead,” Pam Johnson recalled.

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The couple’s one-month quest to prove Ned Johnson was alive coincides with efforts by President Donald Trump and his appointed government efficiency expert, billionaire Elon Musk, to uncover fraud they say is rampant in the Social Security Administration, which provides monthly retirement and disability payments to 73 million Americans.

Musk, in particular, has claimed millions of Americans are fraudulently drawing benefits from Social Security, including millions who are dead.

Proving someone who claims they are alive is actually dead will likely be more difficult now that the agency has cut more than 12% of its staff and with plans to close “non-core” government buildings, including the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle.

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But the Johnsons quickly discovered that what might be even more challenging, given the agency’s ongoing budget cuts, is proving you’re still alive once the government has declared you deceased.

Ned Johnson called Bank of America’s estate division and was directed to present himself at a local VA branch office with identification. It took him a week to get an appointment. Then he was told he needed to go to the Social Security Administration in Seattle.

“I got lucky,” he said. “One call to Social Security and somebody actually picked up the phone.”

The earliest he could get an appointment at the Jackson building was March 13. That date was rescheduled for March 24, but Ned decided to go to the Social Security office on the earlier date in hopes that he could get things straightened out.

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He told the official at the front door that he was there to rebook an appointment. He filled out a form and received a number to wait his turn. Eight hours later he was still waiting, and the federal building was about to close for the day.

When Johnson saw a free window, he jumped up and quickly explained his situation. He spent the better part of an hour talking to a Social Security official who went through the system and reversed the declarations showing Johnson as deceased.

“I thought at the time that she was solving the problem,” he said. “We’ve since come to find out that the problem isn’t solved.”

Johnson went back down to the federal building Monday only to realize he was still considered dead by the Social Security Administration. And the problems didn’t stop there.

“Part of the process when you're declared by Social Security is that they automatically notify your bank, or wherever their monthly checks were going, as well as your Medicare carrier and also your credit report, and your credit report goes to zero automatically,” Johnson explained. “We got a letter a couple of days after that February announcement from Humana that said they canceled our Medicare insurance as well. So, we both went three months without insurance.”

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When Ned Johnson got home from his latest trip to the federal building Monday, his wife had more bad news. Although their money had been returned after Johnson cleared things up with the bank, Social Security had made a second deduction for the exact same amount.

“Pam announced that they had deducted another $5,000 out of our checking account,” Johnson said. “I just called the estate division at Bank of America, and they’re still showing on their records that I’m deceased.”

The couple remains unsure how the confusion began. Usually, to start the process of declaring someone dead, a form must be submitted from a hospital or mortuary.

“But nobody can produce that document,” Pam Johnson said.

What the couple has learned from their experience is that, despite everything they’ve been through, they’re lucky. They have other sources of income.

Anyone who relies solely on Social Security for food, housing, and health care would have a hard time surviving what they’ve been through, Pam Johnson said.

“This is going to hurt a lot of people seriously, and I think that's the biggest takeaway,” she said. “You look in those offices — there are people who are disabled or just can't navigate the system. Who's going to help them?”

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