Bit of an overblown title and a nothing burger. 6.5m records of people were simply never closed off with a recorded death. The SSA requires a certified death certificate to close off a file and many of those were lost or never filed by the local authority back in ye olden days of forgotten paperwork.
They can still technically be used fraudulently, for credit and bank accounts and other applications that require SSN’s, if scammers were able to obtain the full info of the lost people. but only 13 of these records were collecting benefits.
Bit of an overblown title and a nothing burger. 6.5m records of people were simply never closed off with a recorded death. The SSA requires a certified death certificate to close off a file and many of those were lost or never filed by the local authority back in ye olden days of forgotten paperwork.
They can still technically be used fraudulently, for credit and bank accounts and other applications that require SSN’s, if scammers were able to obtain the full info of the lost people. but only 13 of these records were collecting benefits.