Hello, they're friends. That's Josh. And for this week's Select, I chose our episode that takes a frank and thrilling look at what happens when the government thinks you're dead. As you can imagine, nothing good is the answer to that. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Bryan, there's Jerry over there. Jerry's not eating anything today. Chuk. There is clear And did you just do that as a coaster? Yes, I don't want to make a chinky sound every time, Like Okay, I thought I don't want that. I want this now, I get it. Did you hear that? You didn't hear anything? No, I'm I said everyone. Josh just folded up his notes and put his can of cola down on that. And I've never seen you do that, And I thought you were trying to preserve this cheap. This thing is tougher than they. Okay, so it was a sound thing. Sure, it's a sound dampening technique. Can look at us after all these years. I came up with that up in our game um, so, Chuck, do you remember we did a social Security number episode? Did we? I thought, so, you don't remember that one. It was one of those ones where you're like, my eyes are going to bleed because this is so boring, but it turned out to be pretty interesting. It was one of those remember that. But we should give a little bit of a refresher on social Security numbers. Okay, yeah, here's mine. Oh you're gonna give your your to eight seven, nine four. No, I don't even because what if I just accidentally said someone else's like made one up? Yeah, and some dudes listening, it's like, dude, how'd you know Todd? It's always Todd? I don't know. So, so security numbers, get this everybody. They first started being issued in November of nine six, and the Social Security Administration was created to administer a new deal program of federal benefits, things like welfare or retirement benefits, medicare UM. The entire reason any of us originally were given a Social Security number was to track our lifetime earnings and to um determine how much we'd put into Social Security so that when we retired, they could determine how much we should get out in retirement. That's why everyone has a SOFAL security number. And because there are nine digits um, there's something like a billion different possible combinations. And we're about halfway towards using up the SOB security numbers, but probably gaining fast. We are starting to gain much faster than we were before, a good point, but we still got plenty of time. But because of this um, social security numbers get tired when you die, which we'll get to. But originally, when when you were given social Security number, that was it. It wasn't meant for anything else but to track your earnings in to figure out your retirement. Right. Yeah, not like when you get to go to get a haircut basically and they ask you for your Social Security number. And the seventies, the federal government said, okay, there's a couple of other things that you should really have your SOLI Security number. For a passport, UM makes sense if you go to open a bank account that was a new one too, I'll buy that UM. But then, like you said, like as computers came along, now everybody asked what it's become an identifier in a in an authenticator, and that is really bad. That is not what we should be doing with social Security numbers. It really not only that, but the phone numbers and everything and addresses. It just annoys me. And I'm not like a conspiracy guy. It's not like I think, like, oh, what are they going to do with this? It just annoys me. Well, and I can't get a haircut without provide. I'm like, I have cash in my and you have scissors. Can we just do this right? Can we do it like Floyd style? You know? But it annoys me. But even if you take away the annoyance, companies have proven time and time and time again that they're not to be trusted protecting your SO Security number because to authenticate you saying who you are who you say you are, they've got to have your SO Security number on file. And when somebody hacks into their databases, they get your SO Security number. All of your information is right there, and it's become a real problem. But it's also become a real problem living a modern life without giving out SO security number. Right. So we say all this to point out that if for some reason, you didn't have a Social Security number any longer, it would be tough to navigate life. And that actually happens to some people. Yeah, if you've seen the movie Brazil, Oh is it like this? You never saw Brazil. It's it's sort of this in a future dystopian world, but you know, basically like it's it's bureaucracy at its best of someone who's you know, dead or not dead, and the government mixes it up. Is that what Brazil is about? Yeah? I did not know that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up thing because we would have heard from people. It's it's an Yeah, it's good, right, it is. And you should go listen to the movie Crush episode on Brazil with Jonathan Colton. Okay, yeah, I didn't know that. Why no one slipped past me. I wasn't talking to you, but sure, you're welcome to listen. Thanks, I'm part of everybody. I had to go to the Social Security Office recently to get a card because of this job in our new company. Really, yeah, I had to prove, you know whatever, that I'm alive. You didn't unemployable. I guess you didn't just give him your passport. I couldn't find my passport because I'm in between houses right now and it was buried somewhere. Okay, but you do have it, because we're probably going to Toronto this year. I do have it. I did find it kind of after I went to the Social Security office. But all that was just to say that if you think the d m V is a pit of despair, just go to the Social Security I want to It's not fun. I really don't want to know. So, um, okay, you can imagine how bad it is when everything's just hunky dory and you just need a copy of your card. That's all you needed. Right For some people, some poor SAPs out there, they are thought by the government and listed by the government as having died, and that is a big problem if you're alive. Yes, because again, you need your Social Security number for everything to start with. And then secondly, because we have enough social Security numbers to go around. Like I said, when you die, you're so security number gets retired with you and they hang in in the rafters of your local NBA franchise. It's exactly right. If you look really closely, they're all up there. But um, that's that is a problem for somebody who gets listed as dead on what's called the death Master file. Do I need to say it now? Even somebody listening to the very first stuff. You should know right now. They know what you're saying. There's a bunch of good band names in here. But Death Master File is pretty good. So uh. It's also called the Social Security Death Index, but death Master files way better. I think you would agree. It depends on who you're talking to. I think genealogists typically call it the s S d I. Everybody else calls it the death Master File. That's what I saw, you know why, because they don't know how to party or they get their own little weird party going on. Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Um. Yeah, you gotta look at people differently sometimes. I was trying to think of the bumper sticker. Genealogists do it blank in the in the archives. Genealogists do it with their DNA, with their dead ancestors. It's two bumper stickers, just having ellipses had become of one. So uh, all right, where were we the d MF. Alright, it's it was established at the same time the Social Security numbers were back in nineteen thirty six, and then it took all the way to night before the public could even see this list, right right, there was a freedom of Information Act that was filed back in night um, and there was a lawsuit in the federal court said you know what, yeah, this is this is public information. You have to publish this. And there's actually like a master death master file that's called the New Newmandent and that's like everything, and that's the that's the one that the death master file is derived from. The public version of it is the death master file, right which, when you die, there a bunch of ways that your name can get to the s s A, the Social Security Administration. Sometimes it's a funeral home. Sometimes it's from like a spittle. Sometimes it's from your family, um, because it's the family's responsibility ultimately to report it. But most of the time the funeral home is the one that actually does is like a service. I wouldn't have known that, but I also saw, um, well now you know, um, there's probably some poor stuff. You should know a listener, our condolences, who's dealing with this right now? It's your responsibility to go report this to the Social Security Administration. Yeah, okay, that's sad. I also saw that your bank, the postal service, some other randos are legally allowed to report your death as well, so as the post off post person to saying like, I haven't picked up their mail in like three weeks, they're dead. To me, I think I should just report that. I don't. I don't know I could. I could not find the procedure from that anything other than a couple of good sources mentioned the postal service as a legal place, the legal entity that can report your death to the FEDS. Right, So why do they want this death Master File? Of course, if you have paid UM, well, the government needs to know if you're not around anymore. It's kind of that simple. There's a couple of reasons why. Yes, they need to know, because you get a little dough They can't have your Soubsecurity number out there. They need to know that you're deceased UM because they don't want to be paying um income tax refunds if somebody starts filing them fraudulently. They don't want people opening bank accounts in your name. They want to make sure that you're listed as dead. And so that's what the Death Master File does. It kind of serves as the storehouse for all the people in America who have been dead basically since the sixties. But it goes as far back as nineteen thirty six or thirty seven, which is surprisingly more than a hundred million people. Yes, but they think that there's maybe up to sixteen million dead people missing from this list. It's not it's not perfect. We'll spoil now. I guess we should then follow that statement by saying there are tens of thousands of people on that list who should not be on that list, right exactly, But before we get to there, um, This Death Masterfile originally was so Social Security could track who was dead and who wasn't, so they could determine who to pay Social Security Administration benefits out to the survivors. Get this, did you know this? If you're in America and you're the recipient, you're the survivor of somebody who gets Social Security, you get a cool two hundred and fifty five dollars to help bury them. Yeah. That's when I said you get a little dough that I meant little, a little dough. Yeah, maybe like one of the fancy handles on the casket would be covered by that. I don't even think you can get cremated for two hundred dollars. I don't know. I don't even think they'll leave you in a ditch out back for two hundred dollars. A sky burial costs more than that. Maybe that try state crematorium would take your two hundred fifty dollars. But that's it. Do you remember them? Oh? Sure, yeah evil? So uh, like you said, mistakes are made. And this is where it turns slightly Brazil, there was an investigation in two thousand eleven and they actually named grave Mistakes, which is hysterical by Scripps Howard News service. And what they did was they took uh this master death file from three different years two thousand eight, two thousand eleven. They created a computer program to basically just compare them to see what they came up with. And that they found, uh third, almost thirty two thousand living people who were listed as deceased, and ninety eight or two thousand eight that were then taken off that list after they realized that they goofed up in two thousand eleven. So these people had spent months, years, maybe um listed as dead. And here's the problem. It's bad enough if you go to apply for Medicare because you've retired or Social Security benefits and the government says denied UM you're dead and you're listed as dead, because as far as the government's concerned, if you're on this, you're dead. To them. That's bad enough. But remember that Freedom of Information Act Um lawsuit that opened the thing up to being published publicly. The reason why that suit was filed is because the business community said, hey, we can really use that thing there. It's basically it would be like a big do not take checks from these people list for all dead Americans. Because if somebody comes to us and wants to open a bank account, wants to get an insurance policy, wants to get a car, wants to get a job, it doesn't matter, wants to do something where they could take us for a ride, if they're a fraud, then if we had this list to check against, like social Security numbers or names or whatever, we could root out fraud and we could defend ourselves from identity theft and the fraud that's perpetrated by it. And so banks, insurance company, car dealerships, cable companies, employers, everybody, other government agencies, all barbers, they don't forget them. They all use this death Master file, which is available publicly to check your applications against. And if the government says that you're dead. It says that on this file, whether it's right or wrong, you're dead. And that's a whole lot of problems for you. We're gonna get into those right after this, and things chock chock stop. So before we broke, I was talking about that, uh, that scripts um investigation, and there was an Inspector General's report in two thousand and eight that kind of pulled back the curtain on this stuff, and Social Security said, uh, yeah, that's about right. There's there's a lot of people tens of thousands that we think are dead and aren't dead, but they're they're success rates pretty good. Yeah, and he said, they said, but we're at a ninety nine point five nine rate of accuracy, which is not too bad for a government bureaucracy. That's really good. And they said that of the time, can you can fix it in just a year, just a hellish year. Yeah, not too bad. Um. And so they basically admitted two being a government. Uh. I don't want to knock them too much because it feels like everyone's always, you know, knocking government work. But they're basically saying like, yeah, man, it these names are miskeeeds. Or these numbers are miskeyed. Sometimes happens, so UM. The thing is that point for one percent error rate, that's tens of thousands of people every year. There's like two point seven million people added to this list every year who die in America, right, so it adds up to a lot of errors. The thing is that SoC Security Administration UM, so they take their Death Master file, they handed over to the National Technical Information Service, and they're the ones who distributed to all the insurance companies, the genealogy websites, I think ancestry dot com publishes it UM, the yeah insurance companies, everybody who wants to do a background check on you, they all get their their versions of this from them, the National Technical Information Service. But part of the agreement to get this from them you have to pay for it, is that you have to keep your DMF up to date because if you just buy one every once in a while UM and the Social Security Administration finds an error on and updates their file. If you don't go get the new file, your old file is still going to have that error. And that's when it becomes problematic for the people who are listed as deceased. When they try to go get credit and it kind of has a tendency to spread once it's out there. Yeah. So, like I said, sometimes it's being mis keyed. UM. One I think they said like one out of every two hundred is just from clerical error. Um. Sometimes it can be like, um, a family member goes to report to death and they accidentally make a mistake where they might end up being on the death list. Yeah. I don't know how that happens, but it does happen. There are people like Don Pilger human error, married du Bord who who apparently married du Board just gave up. She She's like, my husband can get credit cards still, I'm just gonna live off of uh. Sometimes you this one woman named Candice Atkins just accidentally clicked deceased on a tax return on an electronic filing, and that was it. Can you imagine now, I can't believe there's not an undo. That's yeah, I was looking at me that she had submitted. I guess you could probably have undone it in the moment, but she didn't realize it and submitted it, right, But you should still be able to undo that. Um. And then there are some weird things these uh anomalies that you dug up. Um. More than false listings made in two thousand seven were from Illinois. Yep. It sounds like a hiccup in the system to me. I hiccup in the system or a super lazy data entry person you think. Yeah. Uh. More than two million Americans were falsely listed as dying on the fifte and that was just an internal policy, is to use the fifte as a default value when they didn't know at the middle of the month. Sounds good to me. Um, I guess that was just the question of not going to the trouble of verifying the information right so um. And it can happen the other way too, you can be I think at least six million dead Americans are labeled as alive, which is a huge problem because you're you're just your information is out there ready to be abused by the nefarious. Well, no, that's the opposite. If you're If you're listed as deceased but you're still alive, your information is being published and can be used for identity fraud. If you're actually dead and not listed. If somebody knows that you're dead and not listed, they can use your stuff to to perpetrate fraud against the government. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah, sixty seven thousand of those people, of those numbers were used to report three billion dollars in income between two thousand and six and two thousand eleven. That's a lot of text return refunds, so fraud. Yeah, So it's a problem both ways, where either you're dead and you're not listed on there, or you're not dead and they listed you anyway. And like I was saying earlier, this once this information gets out there, because there's so many different entities getting this list, once it's out there, it stays out there. It's very tough to go around to everyone and and get this information changed. Even once you get it changed with the Social Security Administration, because while it's a requirement to keep your your list up to date, if you're a subscriber, there's no enforcement to it. There's nobody who comes along and says, let me see your list. Oh it's not up to date. Give me give me ten dollars that you're fine. There's nobody enforcing it. So once it's out there, it's very tough to undo. It takes forever, uh well less than a year on average supposedly. So there are a lot of horror stories, UM for what this can due to someone's life. UM. This one per Sin Rivers. What's the first name, Judy Rivers. Judy Rivers Rivers Cuomo. UM. Police actually detained Judy Rivers from using because she used a debit card, her own debit card at a Walmart at Walmart Plus. She also had a mountain dew bottle size meth lab in her pocket. Uh. But in like it seems like all of these cases. It ranges from stuff like, um, your insurance gets all messed up, or your maybe disability checks or your Medicaid payments, or you're trying to get a home loan or trying to get a credit card, like anything that you can think of where a social Security number might help. You can't get a haircut. You should see how long the hair is on these people. Even if you have cash, they won't do it. Rivers ended up living out of her car for six months. Yeah, she had just a really bad time of it for five years. UM. And at first she didn't know what was going on because she was frozen out of her bank accounts. Because this is something said like like you you can't get future loans, you can't get future insurance policies, you can't get future credit. But also the stuff that you already have, your current bank accounts, all that stuff gets frozen because you're listed is dead, and so that comes up on the computer and your account gets frozen. And even when you show up and say hey, it's me, you know me, the teller can't do anything about it. The bank can't do anything about it. It's it's done. And now you've just been pitted against the system. Yes, and it's like there's no door you can go knock on and say, hey, we can clear this up in just a few minutes. I'm clearly alive. You just click the few little things you need to click to get my life back. Because the c US government it's not nearly that easy. So I guess, said Chuck, that brings up what to do because there actually are procedures in place, Like we said, the Social Security Administration says this is not fully accurate. Anybody gets this list needs to keep updating it as we update it. I think they released an updated list weekly. They don't even tell you though, you find out the hard way almost always. That's a big one. Yeah, it's not like they say, by the way, we found an error, UM, because they don't know. They don't know you're alive. Right, So I actually called the Social Security Administration. I did because I wanted answers. You didn't go to the office. No, I didn't know. It was a little laterward. It wasn't cowardless, it was laziness. So UM I was talking to like just the the guy who answered, and he knew exactly what I was talking about, knew all the procedures. But I asked him. I was like, do you guys ever uncover this yourselves or is it when people come to you that you know there's a mistake. He's like, yeah, when people come to us. So supposedly there's all these reforms in place and all that. But I think still for the most part, when an error is uncovered, it's because you found it out. But even if they do find it out, yes, what you said is true, they don't inform the person, which is kind of a violation of the UM the Privacy Act, I would think. So from what I understand, it is like anytime your confidential information is breached and made public, UM, you're supposed to be informed about that. So the SSA should be sending out letters, but as far as I know, they do not. I love this quote in here, um, under the section on what to do, Like the Social Security Administration is trying to correct this, and there's a quote from someone who works there that said that sometimes they'll go out and see if old Americans are really still alive, and it it says this, we go to medicare and see if anyone hasn't been to medicare for three years, and if they haven't been, we try to go out and make a phone call to call them and see if they're you know, still here. And the interviewer was like, are you drunk? That's what it sounds like. That is the follow up question. Oh man, So yeah, they I mean supposedly because of things like that. Scripts Howard News Service investigation in two eleven sixteen minutes did a big one, and I think, yeah, for sure, Um, yes, it is like the truth of what you just have ran through me like a bolt. Um. But the Social Security Administration has finally kind of started to be responsive and they are supposedly undertaking reforms, including having investigators try to root this out themselves, which ironically they're relying on other government databases like this guy said medicare to check their records against. They've stopped taking reports from the state and now only except um direct reports from people. But that in itself opened up another problem because they went back and cleared out the records of like five million Americans whose deaths have been reported from state databases, so that six million went to something like eleven million of dead people who aren't on there. Now, are they actually recommending that you pull your credit report three times a year? Yes? Really? Yes, that seems like I don't know, You're not like that affects your credit. I don't know if that one does. Really. I know it's free for sure, but I don't know if it affects your credit or not. But yeah, so you get access to your the credit reports from the three big bureaus, right, are you gonna do that? You have you set up calendar reminders? No, I'm going through now like once a quarter. I haven't the rest of your life to make sure you're not listed as dead. I haven't had time today yet. It seems like if you're an active consumer in the world, you would find out very quickly, very quickly. Um, without having to do that. Yeah, that scripts service. Though, when they found the like thirty four thousand people who have been listed as dead, they tried to contact as many of them as they could, and they said about half of the people were well aware that they were listed as dead names through nightmare struggles, but strangely like half had no idea what they were talking about. So it's like, what kind of life do you have to live to not be aware of that? Because you you or I would come up against it within a week or a month or something. It seems like, yeah, like there would be something that came up where it's like, wait a minute, but like it says this information isn't is incomplete, or it says you're dead or something like that. We find out pretty or just to go get money out of a cash machine, it might say sorry, your pen doesn't work. But I think the recommendation is in addition to finding out that your listed is dead, there's also a lot of other stuff that that you can kind of keep tabs on by looking at your credit report three times a year, once every four months. Yeah, and they say the real solution for all of us would be if every company on the planet doesn't require Well here's the thing though, they can't legally require your social Security number two open up or start a telephone in your name at a home, but they'll ask for it. And if you refuse to give it, like, you may not be able to get at all, or you may just have a really really hard time. Yeah, they can refuse to do busin with you. And that's the crux of the problem because that de facto means that you need to play ball whether you want to give your Social Security number out or not. Tough, if you want that internet service or that cable service, or you want that haircut, you're gonna have to play ball. Yeah, it was I remember growing up. It was a like I remember I had a Social Security card and I remember my mom being like, you gotta put that in your desk royer. Remember, don't touch it. Ever, if somebody comes near your your drawer, you shoot them with with this gun. Yeah, it was crazy. And now it's just like I'd probably give out my social like twice a month. Right. But but because of those breaches, because so many people have your Social Security number now, and because hackers have gotten really good at getting into things like um, I think it was Experience or TransUnion who were hacked in two thousand seventeen. Yeah, that was huge. Um that that was it was not only I read not only did it basically just totally erode the public's trust and credit bureaus to keep our stuff private, like they were the ones who were supposed to be unhackable. And I think a hundred and thirty seven million social security numbers made it out into the wild from that hack. Um that that that not only eroded trust in the credit bureaus, it was the beginning of the end for using social security numbers like we do to authenticate or as identify irs companies. Some are moving away from that now, right, Yeah, because they're getting sued and they're getting fines and they just realized they can't keep this stuff protected. The problem is no one knows what's next. A lot of people have talked about like blockchain, but nobody understands blockchain, which, by the way, we should totally do a blockchain episode. Um, but everybody's kind of like, it's probably gonna be blockchain, But first time to go figure out what blockchain is, and then we'll figure out how to do social security numbers through blockchain. I'm sure in some offices they're like, you know, the old barcode on the back of the neck seems silly, but surewood work. Have you seen Brazil? Should we take a break? Oh yeah, let's all right. Let's take another break, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the rest of the world right after this and things and chop and chock stop. So chuck, we're going around the world in eighty days in our ninth little balloon. Actually, I said, we're going to talk about the rest of the world. We're only going to talk about one more place in the world. Hey man, I got Canada. Oh yeah, the UK. Okay. Basically, anywhere there's a country with a bureaucracy, in a country where people die, there's going to be someone erroneously listed as dead. All right, so let's go to India. In India, it's not always an accident. Uh, sometimes it's an error. But sometimes, um, you can do what they call quote killing people on paper end quote um in order to say their property is mine, to lay claim to something legally, you can uh, you can do so especially I mean they don't it's not legal, but it's something that happens no, you can bribe an official who will say, yeah, okay, yes, this person is dead, thank you for reporting their death. Here is their land or cousin or whoever. Well supposedly in the um northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Um, it's become a real problem there. Um. And there was a man there is a man name Lal Bahari who in nineteen seventy six at the just twenty two, found out he was listed as dead and his uncle did his uncle do this or did his uncle just get the land? And his uncle's family, his uncle's family, they're the one that that purposefully listed him as dead just so they could get the land. Yep. He went to go get a business loan. He was a loomer and he went to get a business loan. And to get a business loan, he needed documentation of his identity. When he went to go get that, the local records office is like, you're dead. And it took him seventeen years to undead himself. Yeah. Fortunately for the world. He had a great sense of um absurdity of humor like yes, but also like the humor in absurdy, like he he realized, like this is so preposterous, and he really used that as motivation to make huge moves. Yeah, he would answer the phone, um as dead person, which is uh talkin silent uh. He would answer the phone like that. He organized the Uttar Pradesh Reta Singh which is Udra Pradesh Dead People's Association, And it seems like really brought a lot of like attention to this through like almost like public absurdist public demonstrations too. Yeah, like parades of dead people walking around on the steps of like the government buildings and stuff like that. And finally he did have his death overturned legally. Um, did you see whether or not he got his land? I didn't see that. Actually a great question. I didn't even think about that, but yeah I I did not. I don't know, but two people, um, because of his efforts in that area of India where had their deaths overturned. Yeah, that was just in one year. Even which why I think is cool about him as he founded this organization and got his life back in ninety four, it still stayed on as the you know, the driving force behind the Udhapradesh Dead Person's Association and won an ignoble prize for it. Not bad. We did an episode on that too. You remember the ignobles man. That was a long time ago. Yep. So one more thing I we never really actually said what to do if you end up listed incorrectly is dead on the death Master file. Start answering the phone is dead? Chuck, Yeah, exactly, shame the government. Also, the other thing you're supposed to do first is go in person to your local Social Security Administration. And by the way, this is information directly from the s s A to me to you, because I called them. The guy said, just bring a driver's license at passport and we'll handle it from there. And I was like, wait, that's it. He's like, yeah, you know, the information matches, your picture matches. That's all you need. And he said, and by handle it, you'll mean nothing will happen here. That's right, right, And I go, so do you give the person? So they give you a letter saying this person's alive, they were listed as deceased by mistake, give them their credit or whatever. Um, we love you, so Security Administration And I said, do you do you give the letter then once they prove it or um. He's like no, once the file is updated, then we typically send a letter out. And I was like, how long is that, you know, And it's weeks easily, if not months before you're going to get a letter. But if you find out, the first thing you want to do go to your local SO security office with your passport and or your driver's license and say, surprise, yeah, I saw that one person even had to have a note from their doctor verifying that they were indeed alive. Weird, weird life. That must be weird, gentry. So, uh, if you want to know more about the death Master file, you can go look it up. It's kind of interesting actually, as far as bureaucracy goes. And since I said bureaucracy, it's time for a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this um. This is a follow up on the rape Kits episode, which we got a lot of amazing and sad stories from that one. Uh. This is about the money. The money's because remember on the show we said that you know, you don't you get to pay for that stuff for treatment? Yeah, apparently you can get money back, which we've meant to go back and re record a section and did not. So this is by means of following up on that. Hey guys, a longtime listener first time writer finished the episode on rape kits and realize I could offer some information that will hopefully bring some peace of mind. I work as a medical biller for a hospital in the Midwest. Part of my job is processing the sexual assault claims that come in at our hospital. We have a program for those who present to the hospital UH after a sexual assault. We in partner with the state, cover all the charges that result from the initially our visit, and the patient has given a voucher for any relevant follow up care that they may need over the next three months. Is awesome. It is, and we realized that a lot of states do this after we had recorded and published the show. I'm so glad this person wrote in thould say it is good to know. We also take steps to ensure that the patient will never see a bill or be contacted by our department regards to their visit to reduce any re traumatization. I'm the point person for this process here handle all the claims personally. I'm not sure how many hospitals implement this program, but I hope this helps you all know that at least here we do as much as we can to alleviate any unnecessary burden from our patients during the stressful and sensitive times. Thanks for all you guys do. You have transformed many days years spent in a cubicle into opportunities to learn. Keep doing the great work. And that is from Maria. Thank you very much. That was amazing. Yeah, Maria, thanks for doing that job too. That's tough stuff. That was the antithesis of another email we got who basically said, regarding your little soapbox about how society should take on that cost, keep your politics to yourself because I disagree. I don't know if I saw that one. It was a bad one and I just wanted to say that that person is a butt head. Oh no, wait, maybe I did see that. I couldn't even bring myself to respond. I think I did, and I did respond. Oh what did you say? I don't remember. Did you tell him they were about hecko jump in a lake? There? You? Um? Well, if you want to get in touch with us, whether we think you're a butt head or a saint, it doesn't matter. We still want to hear from you, you can go on to stuffy sho dot com check out our social links. You can also send us a good old fashioned email wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, uh, spray with perfume, and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hello, they're friends. That's Josh. And for this week's Select, I chose our episode that takes a frank and thrilling look at what happens when the government thinks you're dead. As you can imagine, nothing good is the answer to that. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Bryan, there's Jerry over there. Jerry's not eating anything today. Chuk. There is clear And did you just do that as a coaster? Yes, I don't want to make a chinky sound every time, Like Okay, I thought I don't want that. I want this now, I get it. Did you hear that? You didn't hear anything? No, I'm I said everyone. Josh just folded up his notes and put his can of cola down on that. And I've never seen you do that, And I thought you were trying to preserve this cheap. This thing is tougher than they. Okay, so it was a sound thing. Sure, it's a sound dampening technique. Can look at us after all these years. I came up with that up in our game um, so, Chuck, do you remember we did a social Security number episode? Did we? I thought, so, you don't remember that one. It was one of those ones where you're like, my eyes are going to bleed because this is so boring, but it turned out to be pretty interesting. It was one of those remember that. But we should give a little bit of a refresher on social Security numbers. Okay, yeah, here's mine. Oh you're gonna give your your to eight seven, nine four. No, I don't even because what if I just accidentally said someone else's like made one up? Yeah, and some dudes listening, it's like, dude, how'd you know Todd? It's always Todd? I don't know. So, so security numbers, get this everybody. They first started being issued in November of nine six, and the Social Security Administration was created to administer a new deal program of federal benefits, things like welfare or retirement benefits, medicare UM. The entire reason any of us originally were given a Social Security number was to track our lifetime earnings and to um determine how much we'd put into Social Security so that when we retired, they could determine how much we should get out in retirement. That's why everyone has a SOFAL security number. And because there are nine digits um, there's something like a billion different possible combinations. And we're about halfway towards using up the SOB security numbers, but probably gaining fast. We are starting to gain much faster than we were before, a good point, but we still got plenty of time. But because of this um, social security numbers get tired when you die, which we'll get to. But originally, when when you were given social Security number, that was it. It wasn't meant for anything else but to track your earnings in to figure out your retirement. Right. Yeah, not like when you get to go to get a haircut basically and they ask you for your Social Security number. And the seventies, the federal government said, okay, there's a couple of other things that you should really have your SOLI Security number. For a passport, UM makes sense if you go to open a bank account that was a new one too, I'll buy that UM. But then, like you said, like as computers came along, now everybody asked what it's become an identifier in a in an authenticator, and that is really bad. That is not what we should be doing with social Security numbers. It really not only that, but the phone numbers and everything and addresses. It just annoys me. And I'm not like a conspiracy guy. It's not like I think, like, oh, what are they going to do with this? It just annoys me. Well, and I can't get a haircut without provide. I'm like, I have cash in my and you have scissors. Can we just do this right? Can we do it like Floyd style? You know? But it annoys me. But even if you take away the annoyance, companies have proven time and time and time again that they're not to be trusted protecting your SO Security number because to authenticate you saying who you are who you say you are, they've got to have your SO Security number on file. And when somebody hacks into their databases, they get your SO Security number. All of your information is right there, and it's become a real problem. But it's also become a real problem living a modern life without giving out SO security number. Right. So we say all this to point out that if for some reason, you didn't have a Social Security number any longer, it would be tough to navigate life. And that actually happens to some people. Yeah, if you've seen the movie Brazil, Oh is it like this? You never saw Brazil. It's it's sort of this in a future dystopian world, but you know, basically like it's it's bureaucracy at its best of someone who's you know, dead or not dead, and the government mixes it up. Is that what Brazil is about? Yeah? I did not know that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up thing because we would have heard from people. It's it's an Yeah, it's good, right, it is. And you should go listen to the movie Crush episode on Brazil with Jonathan Colton. Okay, yeah, I didn't know that. Why no one slipped past me. I wasn't talking to you, but sure, you're welcome to listen. Thanks, I'm part of everybody. I had to go to the Social Security Office recently to get a card because of this job in our new company. Really, yeah, I had to prove, you know whatever, that I'm alive. You didn't unemployable. I guess you didn't just give him your passport. I couldn't find my passport because I'm in between houses right now and it was buried somewhere. Okay, but you do have it, because we're probably going to Toronto this year. I do have it. I did find it kind of after I went to the Social Security office. But all that was just to say that if you think the d m V is a pit of despair, just go to the Social Security I want to It's not fun. I really don't want to know. So, um, okay, you can imagine how bad it is when everything's just hunky dory and you just need a copy of your card. That's all you needed. Right For some people, some poor SAPs out there, they are thought by the government and listed by the government as having died, and that is a big problem if you're alive. Yes, because again, you need your Social Security number for everything to start with. And then secondly, because we have enough social Security numbers to go around. Like I said, when you die, you're so security number gets retired with you and they hang in in the rafters of your local NBA franchise. It's exactly right. If you look really closely, they're all up there. But um, that's that is a problem for somebody who gets listed as dead on what's called the death Master file. Do I need to say it now? Even somebody listening to the very first stuff. You should know right now. They know what you're saying. There's a bunch of good band names in here. But Death Master File is pretty good. So uh. It's also called the Social Security Death Index, but death Master files way better. I think you would agree. It depends on who you're talking to. I think genealogists typically call it the s S d I. Everybody else calls it the death Master File. That's what I saw, you know why, because they don't know how to party or they get their own little weird party going on. Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Um. Yeah, you gotta look at people differently sometimes. I was trying to think of the bumper sticker. Genealogists do it blank in the in the archives. Genealogists do it with their DNA, with their dead ancestors. It's two bumper stickers, just having ellipses had become of one. So uh, all right, where were we the d MF. Alright, it's it was established at the same time the Social Security numbers were back in nineteen thirty six, and then it took all the way to night before the public could even see this list, right right, there was a freedom of Information Act that was filed back in night um, and there was a lawsuit in the federal court said you know what, yeah, this is this is public information. You have to publish this. And there's actually like a master death master file that's called the New Newmandent and that's like everything, and that's the that's the one that the death master file is derived from. The public version of it is the death master file, right which, when you die, there a bunch of ways that your name can get to the s s A, the Social Security Administration. Sometimes it's a funeral home. Sometimes it's from like a spittle. Sometimes it's from your family, um, because it's the family's responsibility ultimately to report it. But most of the time the funeral home is the one that actually does is like a service. I wouldn't have known that, but I also saw, um, well now you know, um, there's probably some poor stuff. You should know a listener, our condolences, who's dealing with this right now? It's your responsibility to go report this to the Social Security Administration. Yeah, okay, that's sad. I also saw that your bank, the postal service, some other randos are legally allowed to report your death as well, so as the post off post person to saying like, I haven't picked up their mail in like three weeks, they're dead. To me, I think I should just report that. I don't. I don't know I could. I could not find the procedure from that anything other than a couple of good sources mentioned the postal service as a legal place, the legal entity that can report your death to the FEDS. Right, So why do they want this death Master File? Of course, if you have paid UM, well, the government needs to know if you're not around anymore. It's kind of that simple. There's a couple of reasons why. Yes, they need to know, because you get a little dough They can't have your Soubsecurity number out there. They need to know that you're deceased UM because they don't want to be paying um income tax refunds if somebody starts filing them fraudulently. They don't want people opening bank accounts in your name. They want to make sure that you're listed as dead. And so that's what the Death Master File does. It kind of serves as the storehouse for all the people in America who have been dead basically since the sixties. But it goes as far back as nineteen thirty six or thirty seven, which is surprisingly more than a hundred million people. Yes, but they think that there's maybe up to sixteen million dead people missing from this list. It's not it's not perfect. We'll spoil now. I guess we should then follow that statement by saying there are tens of thousands of people on that list who should not be on that list, right exactly, But before we get to there, um, This Death Masterfile originally was so Social Security could track who was dead and who wasn't, so they could determine who to pay Social Security Administration benefits out to the survivors. Get this, did you know this? If you're in America and you're the recipient, you're the survivor of somebody who gets Social Security, you get a cool two hundred and fifty five dollars to help bury them. Yeah. That's when I said you get a little dough that I meant little, a little dough. Yeah, maybe like one of the fancy handles on the casket would be covered by that. I don't even think you can get cremated for two hundred dollars. I don't know. I don't even think they'll leave you in a ditch out back for two hundred dollars. A sky burial costs more than that. Maybe that try state crematorium would take your two hundred fifty dollars. But that's it. Do you remember them? Oh? Sure, yeah evil? So uh, like you said, mistakes are made. And this is where it turns slightly Brazil, there was an investigation in two thousand eleven and they actually named grave Mistakes, which is hysterical by Scripps Howard News service. And what they did was they took uh this master death file from three different years two thousand eight, two thousand eleven. They created a computer program to basically just compare them to see what they came up with. And that they found, uh third, almost thirty two thousand living people who were listed as deceased, and ninety eight or two thousand eight that were then taken off that list after they realized that they goofed up in two thousand eleven. So these people had spent months, years, maybe um listed as dead. And here's the problem. It's bad enough if you go to apply for Medicare because you've retired or Social Security benefits and the government says denied UM you're dead and you're listed as dead, because as far as the government's concerned, if you're on this, you're dead. To them. That's bad enough. But remember that Freedom of Information Act Um lawsuit that opened the thing up to being published publicly. The reason why that suit was filed is because the business community said, hey, we can really use that thing there. It's basically it would be like a big do not take checks from these people list for all dead Americans. Because if somebody comes to us and wants to open a bank account, wants to get an insurance policy, wants to get a car, wants to get a job, it doesn't matter, wants to do something where they could take us for a ride, if they're a fraud, then if we had this list to check against, like social Security numbers or names or whatever, we could root out fraud and we could defend ourselves from identity theft and the fraud that's perpetrated by it. And so banks, insurance company, car dealerships, cable companies, employers, everybody, other government agencies, all barbers, they don't forget them. They all use this death Master file, which is available publicly to check your applications against. And if the government says that you're dead. It says that on this file, whether it's right or wrong, you're dead. And that's a whole lot of problems for you. We're gonna get into those right after this, and things chock chock stop. So before we broke, I was talking about that, uh, that scripts um investigation, and there was an Inspector General's report in two thousand and eight that kind of pulled back the curtain on this stuff, and Social Security said, uh, yeah, that's about right. There's there's a lot of people tens of thousands that we think are dead and aren't dead, but they're they're success rates pretty good. Yeah, and he said, they said, but we're at a ninety nine point five nine rate of accuracy, which is not too bad for a government bureaucracy. That's really good. And they said that of the time, can you can fix it in just a year, just a hellish year. Yeah, not too bad. Um. And so they basically admitted two being a government. Uh. I don't want to knock them too much because it feels like everyone's always, you know, knocking government work. But they're basically saying like, yeah, man, it these names are miskeeeds. Or these numbers are miskeyed. Sometimes happens, so UM. The thing is that point for one percent error rate, that's tens of thousands of people every year. There's like two point seven million people added to this list every year who die in America, right, so it adds up to a lot of errors. The thing is that SoC Security Administration UM, so they take their Death Master file, they handed over to the National Technical Information Service, and they're the ones who distributed to all the insurance companies, the genealogy websites, I think ancestry dot com publishes it UM, the yeah insurance companies, everybody who wants to do a background check on you, they all get their their versions of this from them, the National Technical Information Service. But part of the agreement to get this from them you have to pay for it, is that you have to keep your DMF up to date because if you just buy one every once in a while UM and the Social Security Administration finds an error on and updates their file. If you don't go get the new file, your old file is still going to have that error. And that's when it becomes problematic for the people who are listed as deceased. When they try to go get credit and it kind of has a tendency to spread once it's out there. Yeah. So, like I said, sometimes it's being mis keyed. UM. One I think they said like one out of every two hundred is just from clerical error. Um. Sometimes it can be like, um, a family member goes to report to death and they accidentally make a mistake where they might end up being on the death list. Yeah. I don't know how that happens, but it does happen. There are people like Don Pilger human error, married du Bord who who apparently married du Board just gave up. She She's like, my husband can get credit cards still, I'm just gonna live off of uh. Sometimes you this one woman named Candice Atkins just accidentally clicked deceased on a tax return on an electronic filing, and that was it. Can you imagine now, I can't believe there's not an undo. That's yeah, I was looking at me that she had submitted. I guess you could probably have undone it in the moment, but she didn't realize it and submitted it, right, But you should still be able to undo that. Um. And then there are some weird things these uh anomalies that you dug up. Um. More than false listings made in two thousand seven were from Illinois. Yep. It sounds like a hiccup in the system to me. I hiccup in the system or a super lazy data entry person you think. Yeah. Uh. More than two million Americans were falsely listed as dying on the fifte and that was just an internal policy, is to use the fifte as a default value when they didn't know at the middle of the month. Sounds good to me. Um, I guess that was just the question of not going to the trouble of verifying the information right so um. And it can happen the other way too, you can be I think at least six million dead Americans are labeled as alive, which is a huge problem because you're you're just your information is out there ready to be abused by the nefarious. Well, no, that's the opposite. If you're If you're listed as deceased but you're still alive, your information is being published and can be used for identity fraud. If you're actually dead and not listed. If somebody knows that you're dead and not listed, they can use your stuff to to perpetrate fraud against the government. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah, sixty seven thousand of those people, of those numbers were used to report three billion dollars in income between two thousand and six and two thousand eleven. That's a lot of text return refunds, so fraud. Yeah, So it's a problem both ways, where either you're dead and you're not listed on there, or you're not dead and they listed you anyway. And like I was saying earlier, this once this information gets out there, because there's so many different entities getting this list, once it's out there, it stays out there. It's very tough to go around to everyone and and get this information changed. Even once you get it changed with the Social Security Administration, because while it's a requirement to keep your your list up to date, if you're a subscriber, there's no enforcement to it. There's nobody who comes along and says, let me see your list. Oh it's not up to date. Give me give me ten dollars that you're fine. There's nobody enforcing it. So once it's out there, it's very tough to undo. It takes forever, uh well less than a year on average supposedly. So there are a lot of horror stories, UM for what this can due to someone's life. UM. This one per Sin Rivers. What's the first name, Judy Rivers. Judy Rivers Rivers Cuomo. UM. Police actually detained Judy Rivers from using because she used a debit card, her own debit card at a Walmart at Walmart Plus. She also had a mountain dew bottle size meth lab in her pocket. Uh. But in like it seems like all of these cases. It ranges from stuff like, um, your insurance gets all messed up, or your maybe disability checks or your Medicaid payments, or you're trying to get a home loan or trying to get a credit card, like anything that you can think of where a social Security number might help. You can't get a haircut. You should see how long the hair is on these people. Even if you have cash, they won't do it. Rivers ended up living out of her car for six months. Yeah, she had just a really bad time of it for five years. UM. And at first she didn't know what was going on because she was frozen out of her bank accounts. Because this is something said like like you you can't get future loans, you can't get future insurance policies, you can't get future credit. But also the stuff that you already have, your current bank accounts, all that stuff gets frozen because you're listed is dead, and so that comes up on the computer and your account gets frozen. And even when you show up and say hey, it's me, you know me, the teller can't do anything about it. The bank can't do anything about it. It's it's done. And now you've just been pitted against the system. Yes, and it's like there's no door you can go knock on and say, hey, we can clear this up in just a few minutes. I'm clearly alive. You just click the few little things you need to click to get my life back. Because the c US government it's not nearly that easy. So I guess, said Chuck, that brings up what to do because there actually are procedures in place, Like we said, the Social Security Administration says this is not fully accurate. Anybody gets this list needs to keep updating it as we update it. I think they released an updated list weekly. They don't even tell you though, you find out the hard way almost always. That's a big one. Yeah, it's not like they say, by the way, we found an error, UM, because they don't know. They don't know you're alive. Right, So I actually called the Social Security Administration. I did because I wanted answers. You didn't go to the office. No, I didn't know. It was a little laterward. It wasn't cowardless, it was laziness. So UM I was talking to like just the the guy who answered, and he knew exactly what I was talking about, knew all the procedures. But I asked him. I was like, do you guys ever uncover this yourselves or is it when people come to you that you know there's a mistake. He's like, yeah, when people come to us. So supposedly there's all these reforms in place and all that. But I think still for the most part, when an error is uncovered, it's because you found it out. But even if they do find it out, yes, what you said is true, they don't inform the person, which is kind of a violation of the UM the Privacy Act, I would think. So from what I understand, it is like anytime your confidential information is breached and made public, UM, you're supposed to be informed about that. So the SSA should be sending out letters, but as far as I know, they do not. I love this quote in here, um, under the section on what to do, Like the Social Security Administration is trying to correct this, and there's a quote from someone who works there that said that sometimes they'll go out and see if old Americans are really still alive, and it it says this, we go to medicare and see if anyone hasn't been to medicare for three years, and if they haven't been, we try to go out and make a phone call to call them and see if they're you know, still here. And the interviewer was like, are you drunk? That's what it sounds like. That is the follow up question. Oh man, So yeah, they I mean supposedly because of things like that. Scripts Howard News Service investigation in two eleven sixteen minutes did a big one, and I think, yeah, for sure, Um, yes, it is like the truth of what you just have ran through me like a bolt. Um. But the Social Security Administration has finally kind of started to be responsive and they are supposedly undertaking reforms, including having investigators try to root this out themselves, which ironically they're relying on other government databases like this guy said medicare to check their records against. They've stopped taking reports from the state and now only except um direct reports from people. But that in itself opened up another problem because they went back and cleared out the records of like five million Americans whose deaths have been reported from state databases, so that six million went to something like eleven million of dead people who aren't on there. Now, are they actually recommending that you pull your credit report three times a year? Yes? Really? Yes, that seems like I don't know, You're not like that affects your credit. I don't know if that one does. Really. I know it's free for sure, but I don't know if it affects your credit or not. But yeah, so you get access to your the credit reports from the three big bureaus, right, are you gonna do that? You have you set up calendar reminders? No, I'm going through now like once a quarter. I haven't the rest of your life to make sure you're not listed as dead. I haven't had time today yet. It seems like if you're an active consumer in the world, you would find out very quickly, very quickly. Um, without having to do that. Yeah, that scripts service. Though, when they found the like thirty four thousand people who have been listed as dead, they tried to contact as many of them as they could, and they said about half of the people were well aware that they were listed as dead names through nightmare struggles, but strangely like half had no idea what they were talking about. So it's like, what kind of life do you have to live to not be aware of that? Because you you or I would come up against it within a week or a month or something. It seems like, yeah, like there would be something that came up where it's like, wait a minute, but like it says this information isn't is incomplete, or it says you're dead or something like that. We find out pretty or just to go get money out of a cash machine, it might say sorry, your pen doesn't work. But I think the recommendation is in addition to finding out that your listed is dead, there's also a lot of other stuff that that you can kind of keep tabs on by looking at your credit report three times a year, once every four months. Yeah, and they say the real solution for all of us would be if every company on the planet doesn't require Well here's the thing though, they can't legally require your social Security number two open up or start a telephone in your name at a home, but they'll ask for it. And if you refuse to give it, like, you may not be able to get at all, or you may just have a really really hard time. Yeah, they can refuse to do busin with you. And that's the crux of the problem because that de facto means that you need to play ball whether you want to give your Social Security number out or not. Tough, if you want that internet service or that cable service, or you want that haircut, you're gonna have to play ball. Yeah, it was I remember growing up. It was a like I remember I had a Social Security card and I remember my mom being like, you gotta put that in your desk royer. Remember, don't touch it. Ever, if somebody comes near your your drawer, you shoot them with with this gun. Yeah, it was crazy. And now it's just like I'd probably give out my social like twice a month. Right. But but because of those breaches, because so many people have your Social Security number now, and because hackers have gotten really good at getting into things like um, I think it was Experience or TransUnion who were hacked in two thousand seventeen. Yeah, that was huge. Um that that was it was not only I read not only did it basically just totally erode the public's trust and credit bureaus to keep our stuff private, like they were the ones who were supposed to be unhackable. And I think a hundred and thirty seven million social security numbers made it out into the wild from that hack. Um that that that not only eroded trust in the credit bureaus, it was the beginning of the end for using social security numbers like we do to authenticate or as identify irs companies. Some are moving away from that now, right, Yeah, because they're getting sued and they're getting fines and they just realized they can't keep this stuff protected. The problem is no one knows what's next. A lot of people have talked about like blockchain, but nobody understands blockchain, which, by the way, we should totally do a blockchain episode. Um, but everybody's kind of like, it's probably gonna be blockchain, But first time to go figure out what blockchain is, and then we'll figure out how to do social security numbers through blockchain. I'm sure in some offices they're like, you know, the old barcode on the back of the neck seems silly, but surewood work. Have you seen Brazil? Should we take a break? Oh yeah, let's all right. Let's take another break, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the rest of the world right after this and things and chop and chock stop. So chuck, we're going around the world in eighty days in our ninth little balloon. Actually, I said, we're going to talk about the rest of the world. We're only going to talk about one more place in the world. Hey man, I got Canada. Oh yeah, the UK. Okay. Basically, anywhere there's a country with a bureaucracy, in a country where people die, there's going to be someone erroneously listed as dead. All right, so let's go to India. In India, it's not always an accident. Uh, sometimes it's an error. But sometimes, um, you can do what they call quote killing people on paper end quote um in order to say their property is mine, to lay claim to something legally, you can uh, you can do so especially I mean they don't it's not legal, but it's something that happens no, you can bribe an official who will say, yeah, okay, yes, this person is dead, thank you for reporting their death. Here is their land or cousin or whoever. Well supposedly in the um northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Um, it's become a real problem there. Um. And there was a man there is a man name Lal Bahari who in nineteen seventy six at the just twenty two, found out he was listed as dead and his uncle did his uncle do this or did his uncle just get the land? And his uncle's family, his uncle's family, they're the one that that purposefully listed him as dead just so they could get the land. Yep. He went to go get a business loan. He was a loomer and he went to get a business loan. And to get a business loan, he needed documentation of his identity. When he went to go get that, the local records office is like, you're dead. And it took him seventeen years to undead himself. Yeah. Fortunately for the world. He had a great sense of um absurdity of humor like yes, but also like the humor in absurdy, like he he realized, like this is so preposterous, and he really used that as motivation to make huge moves. Yeah, he would answer the phone, um as dead person, which is uh talkin silent uh. He would answer the phone like that. He organized the Uttar Pradesh Reta Singh which is Udra Pradesh Dead People's Association, And it seems like really brought a lot of like attention to this through like almost like public absurdist public demonstrations too. Yeah, like parades of dead people walking around on the steps of like the government buildings and stuff like that. And finally he did have his death overturned legally. Um, did you see whether or not he got his land? I didn't see that. Actually a great question. I didn't even think about that, but yeah I I did not. I don't know, but two people, um, because of his efforts in that area of India where had their deaths overturned. Yeah, that was just in one year. Even which why I think is cool about him as he founded this organization and got his life back in ninety four, it still stayed on as the you know, the driving force behind the Udhapradesh Dead Person's Association and won an ignoble prize for it. Not bad. We did an episode on that too. You remember the ignobles man. That was a long time ago. Yep. So one more thing I we never really actually said what to do if you end up listed incorrectly is dead on the death Master file. Start answering the phone is dead? Chuck, Yeah, exactly, shame the government. Also, the other thing you're supposed to do first is go in person to your local Social Security Administration. And by the way, this is information directly from the s s A to me to you, because I called them. The guy said, just bring a driver's license at passport and we'll handle it from there. And I was like, wait, that's it. He's like, yeah, you know, the information matches, your picture matches. That's all you need. And he said, and by handle it, you'll mean nothing will happen here. That's right, right, And I go, so do you give the person? So they give you a letter saying this person's alive, they were listed as deceased by mistake, give them their credit or whatever. Um, we love you, so Security Administration And I said, do you do you give the letter then once they prove it or um. He's like no, once the file is updated, then we typically send a letter out. And I was like, how long is that, you know, And it's weeks easily, if not months before you're going to get a letter. But if you find out, the first thing you want to do go to your local SO security office with your passport and or your driver's license and say, surprise, yeah, I saw that one person even had to have a note from their doctor verifying that they were indeed alive. Weird, weird life. That must be weird, gentry. So, uh, if you want to know more about the death Master file, you can go look it up. It's kind of interesting actually, as far as bureaucracy goes. And since I said bureaucracy, it's time for a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this um. This is a follow up on the rape Kits episode, which we got a lot of amazing and sad stories from that one. Uh. This is about the money. The money's because remember on the show we said that you know, you don't you get to pay for that stuff for treatment? Yeah, apparently you can get money back, which we've meant to go back and re record a section and did not. So this is by means of following up on that. Hey guys, a longtime listener first time writer finished the episode on rape kits and realize I could offer some information that will hopefully bring some peace of mind. I work as a medical biller for a hospital in the Midwest. Part of my job is processing the sexual assault claims that come in at our hospital. We have a program for those who present to the hospital UH after a sexual assault. We in partner with the state, cover all the charges that result from the initially our visit, and the patient has given a voucher for any relevant follow up care that they may need over the next three months. Is awesome. It is, and we realized that a lot of states do this after we had recorded and published the show. I'm so glad this person wrote in thould say it is good to know. We also take steps to ensure that the patient will never see a bill or be contacted by our department regards to their visit to reduce any re traumatization. I'm the point person for this process here handle all the claims personally. I'm not sure how many hospitals implement this program, but I hope this helps you all know that at least here we do as much as we can to alleviate any unnecessary burden from our patients during the stressful and sensitive times. Thanks for all you guys do. You have transformed many days years spent in a cubicle into opportunities to learn. Keep doing the great work. And that is from Maria. Thank you very much. That was amazing. Yeah, Maria, thanks for doing that job too. That's tough stuff. That was the antithesis of another email we got who basically said, regarding your little soapbox about how society should take on that cost, keep your politics to yourself because I disagree. I don't know if I saw that one. It was a bad one and I just wanted to say that that person is a butt head. Oh no, wait, maybe I did see that. I couldn't even bring myself to respond. I think I did, and I did respond. Oh what did you say? I don't remember. Did you tell him they were about hecko jump in a lake? There? You? Um? Well, if you want to get in touch with us, whether we think you're a butt head or a saint, it doesn't matter. We still want to hear from you, you can go on to stuffy sho dot com check out our social links. You can also send us a good old fashioned email wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, uh, spray with perfume, and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.