A WOMAN has described her fear when she was faced with a bill of $41,500 due to an error out of her control.
Delfina Prisock from North Texas felt her heart plummet to the floor when she read the notice from the Social Security Administration in May last year.
“I turn on the light to make sure I’m reading correctly and my heart just went like…I felt like it dropped to the floor,” she told Fox News affiliate KDFW.
“They said I had an overpayment of $41,514.”
The letter informed Prisock that she received an overpayment and as a result, the administration “must offset your benefit payments due to your receipt of a government pension.”
“We paid you $87.250.00 for June 2020 through April 2023. Since we should have paid you $45,736.00…we paid you $41,514.00 more than you were due,” the letter stated.
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“We will pay you a monthly check of $1,128.20 until we start to collect the overpayment.”
The letter explained that the administration reduces Social Security benefits to widows and widowers “if they also receive a government pension based on their own work.”
Prisock is not eligible for survivor benefits from her late ex-husband as she also receives a Teacher Retirement System pension.
However, she says the administration was aware of this when she applied for the benefits and that her file would have had all the details they needed to avoid the mistake.
“I depend on my Social Security to help me…with my house payment, my car payment, everyday bills,” she said while close to tears.
“I can’t sleep. It’s just affecting me in a lot of ways.
“My migraines have gotten more consistent. I just do not understand how they can do this to people.”
When Prisock contacted the administration about the issue, an employee admitted to her that they had made a mistake.
“She called me and told me, ‘Yeah, I made the mistake. I’m human it was during Covid,'” Prisock said.
“‘I’m human as well,’ I said, and I didn’t make the mistake,” she added.
A report by the Office of Inspector General found in fiscal year 2022 that the agency recovered $4.7 billion in overpayments and still had $21.6 billion uncollected.
“The SSA must be a responsible steward of the funds entrusted to its care by minimizing the risk of making improper payments and recovering overpayments when they occur,” the OIG said in an audit.
Late last year an official request was made by lawmakers to the acting commissioner of the administration.
The request stated that the agency should “take additional action to reduce overpayments and prevent undue harm on the most vulnerable Social Security recipients.”
Prisock launched numerous appeals against her need to repay the additional money she was given in error but they were denied.
However, an update by KDFW a month after its conversation with Prisock revealed that the SSA informed her that she no longer has to pay back the $41,000 sum.
The widow received letters from the administration detailing that both her normal and survivorship benefits would be restored to her, along with backpay for the time that it was under investigation.
“Nobody took responsibility for their part,” she told the outlet.
“How can they sleep at night?
“It hurts me tremendously to see that other people have to go through the same thing that I did.”
The U.S. Sun has reached out to the SSA for comment.