The Weirdly Big Problem of Being Declared Dead Accidentally 

I can only imagine the phone calls. "I'm not dead." "Sir, it says here you are dead."

When I was a teenager, I received a letter from the government stating that we would no longer be get child support payments, because my father was dead. I went over to his house and showed him the letter, he thought it was a joke and started walk around the house pretending to be a zombie. It turns out, he was in the hospital six months before with some complications with his heart and they listed him as deceased. It took him almost a year to get all his records off the DMF and get his Social Security, bank and his drivers license back. He actually was able to sue the hospital and as part of the settlement they were forced to help help him get his identity back. When he actually died several years later, he was in hospice (again, issues with his heart) I was informed via phone call from the duty nurse and I asked, "Are you sure?" she was like "Uh, yeah, pretty sure".

Electronic death records sounds like a edgy record company

when I was working at the Social Security Office, i was contacted by a woman who according to the Master Beneficiary list was not only dead, but died twice four years apart.

It's kinda weird how even dying is complicated

I guess Jesus really needs this video 2000 years ago

What did the undertaker say when he buried the wrong body? "I've made a grave mistake."

1/3 of one percent is a horrifyingly high error rate for something like this. Imagine if that was your error rate when driving: you'd have a couple of crashes a year, just from commuting, only from your own mistakes. Or to compare it a different part of the bureaucracy: it would be enough to change the outcome of elections in swing states.

"I thought you were dead" "My death was, greatly exaggerated"

This actually happened to my Grandfather-in-law and he has such a great sense of humor, I came over for Easter dinner and we did the normal "How are you?" "Oh fine how are you?" and he hits me with the "Oh y'know apparently I'm dead" which left me entirely speechless and confused until he explained.

"Bring out your dead..." "I'M NOT DEAD YET!"

A guy in Romania sued the state to cancel his death certificate, and lost. Because he came back to life too late. There's a month( i think ) after a death certificate is issued when it can be annulled hered. He showed up after 3 years. He was working in Turkey meanwhile, never told anyone, and his relatives declared him dead.

A few years ago a colleague of mine ('D') at my last job was wrongly declared dead by our employer. The employer stopped paying D's salary, cutoff D's benefits, and even sent a form letter of condolence to D's spouse. And, you guessed it, D showing up alive at HR was deemed insufficient by HR to have D restored to their records of the living, reinstating D's salary, etc. It took some doing, but a couple of months later D (while still working without pay to maintain seniority and employment) finally got reinstated at work. Meanwhile, D still had to pay rent, groceries, etc. And, you guessed it, the employer never apologized for the mistake and all of the hassles they caused to D.

This reminds me of when I worked at a state's department of licensing headquarters. I was cancelling some old IDs and I accidentally clicked on the wrong person and cancelled some random person's ID. There was no way to go back or see what I just did so the management didn't care. It'll only suck if they get pulled over, in which case it'll really suck. Sorry random person...

It's honestly one of the most frustrating things that can happen. Have a close friend currently dealing with this in Canada

Happened to my friend, he got pulled over and the cop told him that he was dead and that he legally could not drive the car and he had to have his parents come and get him and go immediately to the courthouse and figure out why he was "dead".

Correction: The DMF database is, itself, NOT public information. Individual death records, ARE public, but not the database that is the tabulation of all death records.

So fun fact: the ssa fixing you getting accidentally declared dead is called "performing a resurrection." Edrs can also take months to come in, so it's not a super great tool.

There are so many stories of death causing complications. Like one where a subscription service wouldn't stop sending magazines to a widow because they require the subscriber to verbally cancel. He's dead!

I worked at IT for a hospital when we got a support ticket "Death person at the info counter". As it turned out the person was life and kicking, but was in urgent need of someone to manually hack the hospital database to be declared undead.

Here's the million-dollar question... If you rob a bank and get arrested, while you are listed as dead... can you be convicted of a crime?

“Hey chief ya biffed it” I’m dead 💀

I'm not joking when I say this: a guy in my country once had to prove that he was alive to get social security benefit, and got everything right, but couldn't prove that he was alive the year prior and had the benefit negated.

Fun fact, my grandma was actually listed dead when her husband, my grandpa died. This is in Canada, but someone decided to list both as dead for some reason. Luckily that was corrected pretty quickly.

This actually happened to my grandma when my grandpa died. She had to go through this whole process of the bank providing the info to prove to Social Security that she was alive. Though she had a lot of fun walking into the bank and Social Security and saying, "Hi! I'm alive!" She's got a great sense of humor and still laughs about it despite almost losing her benefits.

It's always bizarre to hear how terrible is the social security system in america, a lot of this problems would be solved with a better system of ID

I recently read a book called Unbroken, about a WWII pilot who after crashing in the Pacific was considered dead, while in reality he was in a Japanese POW camp for two years. He said his favorite thing to do when he got back home was give surprise visits to his old acquaintances who thought he was dead.

You know, for a nation that's so keen on surveilling their citizens, they're awfully incompetent at actually keeping track of them.

I hate when I'm legally dead without actually being dead

They need to have a alive test, with questions like 1. Are you breathing? 2.are you responding to stimuli 3. Do you have a thirst for human flesh, brains, and or blood that can only be quenched by going out at night and finding a suitable victim to eat. That last one wouldent be a real question, their testing if your dead not if your a politician

Each day that passes, the USA reminds me more of the Imperium in warhammer 40k.

There is a guy in romania who is legally listed as dead and his appeal to be declared not dead was rejected because he missed the appeals window.

there is literally a movie about it in Bollywood, the struggles of being dead, lol

reminds me of something i heard about a guy in a european country. Dude moved to another country for work and several years later his wife submitted paperwork to say he was dead, several years after that, he tried going somewhere but was stopped and send back to his home country because he couldnt get updated paperwork or something (Because of being dead) and when he went to court to prove he was alive they were like "Sorry, cant do anything about it"

0:19 Now I’m sad because $7.99 for a 3 topping pizza is pretty good 😂

Love the "daily, between 1-8 billion people a day

imagine : going to bank and doing a big money heist and then when police will come and arrest you and then judge will sentence you jail for lifetime but he can't cause you are already dead ! so they can't send you to jail just think about it !

My mother passed, and I was amazed how few people I had to inform. Social Security stopped her checks right away, and the Federal Retirement people and the Veterans Administration wrote me a letter stating that they had been informed that she was gone and please let contact them to let them know either way. Even the life insurance I collected on right away because they double-checked the obituaries online.

Next on Wendover products: The logistics of keeping a list of every united states citizen who is alive or dead.

I don't know if "Call the link on your screen" was intentional or not, but it's hilarious regardless

I called 1-800-NOT-LVNG and got an insurance company. WHERE'S MY PIZZA SAM?

I work in a remote border hospital. Patients there don't always have BPJS (the Indonesian national health insurance), so sometimes their friend/family use their card for the patient. Sometimes the patient condition is beyond help and died eventually. Problem is, the patient is administered using other's card, so in the national database, it is the card owner who is declared dead…

“Here’s the thing about dying. It means your dead. But what if instead of being dead... you weren’t-” ... thank you- I.. I needed this reassurance. I’ve hit a hard patch in life and this really helps...

"That's somewhere between 1 and 8 billion people a day" Thank you, HAI, that narrows it right down

This happened to my uncle after my mom passed away. They somehow mixed up Ruth and Russell and my uncle was “dead” instead of my mom for about a year

RealLifeLore and HAI in the same day! It’s a good day! Edit: And WonderWhy and Polymatter!! Edit 2: And Veritasium!

My problem is the opposite. I've felt dead for years and yet I'm still waking up, going to work, and crying

"Is he dead?" "Well yes, but actually no."

Docter: "sorry he passed away" Me: **crying** Docter: "haha, sike. He is doing well. But now i fucked you guys financially". Me: **Having a mental breakdown**

Lol the voice take on "You Just Got Widow-Ized" was perfect

Nice to know that as always the US has a robust and well thought out system to handle things

my great uncle was declared dead a while ago, its caused a lot of issues because that makes most companies not accept you anymore, including things like insurance. he's still alive, but it was very inconvenient when it happened. basically everything using social security gets messed up by being legally dead.

The scariest part is that this isn't something that happens so infrequently that every person whose been a victim of this is local news worthy at the least and are all in a chart on a Wikipedia in the style of everyone under 15 who has given live birth.

Hearing Sam excited makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason

The Government won't let you be even when you are dead lol. Half as interesting I love your content always learning from your sense of humour for my own channel.

About 20 years ago I received a letter from the state claiming my wife was deceased (which came as a shock to us both). I spent 3 days on the phone trying to fix the problem - which was a funeral home somehow screwed up the SSN on a certificate of some kind and poof, she's now dead. After 3 days of arguments with state employees who have the IQ of slightly stale toast, I finally was able to convince them - By telling them that if she was really deceased, I had 2 minor children (5 and 7 at the time) who were entitled to survivors benefits dating back to the date of death. SUDDENLY, much like the biblical Lazarus himself, she was magically brought back from the dead - the minute they realized this was going to get EXPENSIVE.

Really thought the AI wrote this one again at the beginning

So in a sense, its a sick game show hosted by the US Social Security in which unlucky winners will be treated as dead for all intents and purposes.

Funfact: In Germany, there's a private company (called Schufa) evaluating the credit worthyness of each citizen by analyzing payment data. And since they make mistakes, some people have been declared dead as well. And since they are a private company, they can do with their data what they want, and they can change the status of anyone by will. This has led to several incidences of people being declared dead, but also that an arrest warrant was pending. Or they are credit unworthy due to someone else in a different part of the country with no connections to that person hasn't paid one bill. Lots of such stuff.

I feel like this could be pretty easily rectified by the SSA issuing a letter to someone who had been falsely declared dead that says, "This person has been mistakenly listed as dead in the past, contact this phone number to verify"

"the ssa has proposed a way to fix the problem" well that sounds like bs "its someone elses problem" I stand corrected

What bugs me most is that DFM AND DMF is used for the same things.

0:14 "Call the link on your screen right now" No, I rather click on the phone number on my screen.

I heard people are dying to get into the DMF book

There was a movie here in India which was based on the struggles of an old man (who had been declared dead) trying to fix his situation and dealing with corrupt and lazy government officers because otherwise, he would not get his pension. it was a comedy but carried a message strong and heavy... (Movie was Office Office in case you were wondering)

@2:14 idk if im just disabled after grinding out schoolwork for 13 hours or if this is whack. How does 7k-12k people a year translate to every day ONE TO EIGHT BILLION PEOPLE DAILY? (if you precede the fact with "every day", then you don't need to spedficy "daily" at the end). Easy to nitpick when I should compliment. love your channels content and cant imagine how much work goes into each and every video. I enjoy HAI a ton. Perfect for ~5-10min breaks to eat inbetween studies or just to hear sams perfect voice. also dude these jokes are just the best thing in the world. "prank their widow" ahahahaha

Hi Ting! Thanks for sponsoring HAI

loving the energy from sam lately

M*A*S*H s4e4 'The Late Captain Pierce' Hawkeye is declared dead by the army and has to try and get back his benefits and contact his dad that he in fact, is alive.

5:30 "Assuming you're not dead, live in the U.S., and pay for a cell phone plan...' Shucks, only two of those three apply to me.

"Daily, that's 1-8 billion per day" I did not understand that.

I was hoping this would touch on situations like missing persons being declared dead and then turning up.

3:44 it's been 3:44 minutes, not 4, add this to your every mistake you've ever made video series

What if you were dead before being dead but then died, would you be listed as "Dead-dead"

Some years ago my passport expired. They usually notify you about this. Contacted Passports, got told I was dead. Contacted Births & Deaths only confirmed this. Got told things could be rectified if I could supply a valid passport. See the problem. Interestingly, almost all other government departments and businesses didn’t mind at all that I had died. Staff were either understanding or amused. Land rates (taxes) and Banks didn’t care so long as I paid up. Welfare was surprisingly good here, and accepted my confirming witness that I was still alive (they wouldn’t accept the word of a dead person). Drivers licenses were amused by this and said provided I obey road law, being dead shouldn’t be a problem. Airlines companies confirmed that dead usually travel in coffins in cargo, but they would make an exception in my case (but I couldn’t travel overseas). Water, Electricity, was no problem either. Businesses were okay with cash payments (credit from dead is more problematic). I could still vote (a worry if you think about it). So life (or death) still went on. I never did get my passport renewed or find out if Births & Deaths fixed the problem. But I dare not even ask them. Besides, being dead is not so bad and my social life has not suffered.

I had this happen to me and it screwed me over getting jobs and almost screwed me out of being a freshman in college. instead of having my dad being labeled deceased it they labeled me as deceased Happened around summer time

"They say the ghost of an oooold miner haunts the mountain..." "What? Haha, nah, that's just Pete!" "Pete's DEAD?!" "NOPE! Pete's only *mostly* dead. There's a big difference."

Today I learned that deadbeat is an actual word and not something the Grim Reaper’s apprentice made up.

calling the number in the beginning transfers you to an insurance agent...

Kudos to the animator for that smooth transition to the youtube ting link popup! Give this person a tip so they can treat their partner for a nice dinner!

true story SSI had me as dead once. it wasn't in the actual main SC system but they were like yeah we need you to come into office, turns out they had called my phone number, someone said I was dead. that's it. but then they saw I got income from dividends and was using my Medicaid still (my state has program with Medicaid for people on SSI who went to work under certain amount yada yada) . had to go into office give them ID lol

How is "Death Master File" NOT a Metal Band Name?

3:34 Come on that was such a perfect chance to say imposter lol

LMFAO, the Sponge-dead Square-passed got me.

If you are legally dead and you commit a crime, can they sue you for it?

2:20 I’m not even sure what you were intending to say here but 7000-12000 divided by 365 is defo not between 1-8 billion.

Gotta say there's some fantastic choices of stock footage for this video. A+

"-Pizza for 7.99!" Me in my 4th Burrito: COUNT ME IN

“1-8 billion people a day” I guess we will all die then within one to 7 days

Ironically, 'federalism' isn't "the federal government doing things". It is "the state governments individually doing things". So the thing you suggested is the exact opposite of federalism.

"She wasn't a deadbeat, she was just dead" 🤣

Being listed as dead is a fate worst than death itself.

As a European I always enjoy to see that the richest country in the world is basically a giant banana republic just because they think change is evil.

1:20 intentional?

Some of the stock footage fits so well it's insane.

You: "Ok, I'm dead, so I'm not paying taxes anymore then..." IRS: "Wow, wow, wow, hold on a sec..."

I’m never dying

I was dying to click this video.

2:23 Not 1 billion - 8 billion people a day. At the minimum, one-eighth of everyone living on Earth would be erroneously declared dead, while at the maximum, everyone would be a legal zombie! The daily rate of wrongful declaration of death would be more like 19-33 legal zombies a day. I'm surprised nobody else saw this.

What a great way to start off October