News: Woman Convinces Government She’s Alive

[Shin]

EAST QUOGUE, N.Y. (CBS 2/WCBS 880 Excerpts)

She was declared dead – but she’s as alive as you and me.

Carol Combes is the official historian for the village of East Quogue, Long Island. She cares for headstones and writes local obituaries.

In June, she was aghast to learn that she was dead. In fact, she had been declared dead for more than a month.

“I’m on the computer and am in the Social Security death index, and I’m scanning down and all of the sudden, whoa!” she said. “There’s my name, Carol Combes, where I was born, when I died.”

Combes was quickly cut off from bank accounts, medicare and more.

Ancestry Web sites even publicly listed her presumably ‘dearly departed’ Social Security number – that was still active.

“Every account I had was frozen, no matter where it was at,” she said. “I was left with just pocket change.”

 Since then she and her husband Rich have collected hundreds of documents, made endless trips to social security officers, and spent hours on the phone with government workers who finally solved the riddle.

 They traced the error to a clerk in Alabama typing  in the wrong nine digit number.

A spokesman for Social Security says Combes’ record has been corrected.

 “To the Social Security Administration, you’re nothing but a number,” Combes said. “And when that number goes in, they should research it a little better.”

Some of Carol’s assets still remain frozen.

[Shin]

How easily the government can put an entire stop to a single person's life, with a single mistaken keypress!

 

[Brigid]

They traced the error to a clerk in Alabama typing

Goes to show the power of the 'little person'. This clerk may have been spearheading a movement of pink-collar workers. Actually she was playing into His Hands in teaching this woman......humility?

[Shin]

They traced the error to a clerk in Alabama typing

Goes to show the power of the 'little person'. This clerk may have been spearheading a movement of pink-collar workers. Actually she was playing into His Hands in teaching this woman......humility?

Apparently at least the neighbors are amused, 'You're looking good for a dead person!" 

It makes me think of plain Catholics, and monks, and people living spartan lives in the world.. how long could a person live if this happened to you?

In the times of the Antichrist, if you're Catholic, this sort of thing may be one of the things that is done against you -- since you'll not be able to buy or sell without the 'mark of the Beast'.. you'll be entirely cut off from all that the government and computers manage by being marked as a Catholic.

[Brigid]

In the times of the Antichrist, if you're Catholic, this sort of thing may be one of the things that is done against you -- since you'll not be able to buy or sell without the 'mark of the Beast'.. you'll be entirely cut off from all that the government and computers manage by being marked as a Catholic.

Maybe that will be to our spiritual good. I think joining a Catholic community would be wonderful.

Apparently at least the neighbors are amused, 'You're looking good for a dead person!"

[Shin]

Growing your own food, living close to the earth!