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Nicole Paulino of Gaithersburg, Maryland was stunned, to say the least, when she went to renew her driver’s license only to be told she had been declared dead. So, despite her standing right there in line, obviously not dead, she was turned away without being able to renew her driver’s license.
“It then appears that I am deceased,” she told NBC Washington. “I got a little frightened, I’m not gonna lie, and surprised, because I am alive. I’m here.”
Yet there was, listed in the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration’s system as being dead.
To make matters somehow even worse, Paulino says she also received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service which had written in it “deceased taxpayer.” Oh, and her and her three kids’ health insurance was canceled… because she was “dead.”
“This really, really messes up my life,” Paulino said. Indeed. She couldn’t get the inhaler she needs for her asthma and medical bills weren’t being paid. “It has affected me a lot,” she added. “It’s affected my health, my mental health.”
Apparently, after much investigation, it turned out that a funeral home reported someone else had died, but got a digit wrong in their Social Security number and so, instead of that person being declared dead to the government, Nicole Paulino was.
According to a letter sent to NBC Washington by the Social Security Administration stated that of the more than three million death reports they receive each year, less than one-third of one percent are done in error. Doing the quick math, that means 10,000 death reports are wrong every year.
“This happens almost on a daily basis,” attorney Joseph McClelland told the NBC Washington for story from two years ago when a 13-year-old girl, who was very much alive, was declared dead.
Nicole Paulino says that if the TV station hadn’t gotten involved she may still be “deceased.”
“I tried doing it myself and I didn’t get anything resolved,” she said. “If it wasn’t for NBC news that offered to help me, I would have never gotten this problem resolved.”
Which she did when the Social Security Administration finally informed her that the mistake had been corrected.