How a Typo Led to a Maryland Woman Being Declared Dead



When Nicole Paulino of Gaithersburg, Maryland, went to renew her driver’s license, she was turned away because the Maryland DMV’s records showed that the very much alive woman was deceased. Then Paulino discovered that she was listed with the IRS as a “deceased taxpayer,” and her health insurance had been cancelled for her and her three children. Medical bills were piling up and she couldn’t get the inhaler she needed for her asthma. She took her story to the I-Team at local news station WRC-TV, who then reached out to various Maryland government agencies to figure out how this could have happened. It wasn't long after that Paulino got a call from the Social Security Administration, who told her that the mistake was due to a typographical error. According to the representative, a funeral home tried to report someone else dead but got a digit wrong in the Social Security number, submitting Paulino’s number instead. The Social Security Administration responded by saying that its records are highly accurate and of the more than 3 million death reports they receive each year, less than one-third of 1% are subsequently corrected, meaning about 10,000 reports are wrong each year. Although the Social Security Administration says Paulino has been officially brought back to life, she says her life has been turned upside down and it’s going to take some time to right all the wrongs. The Social Security Administration says that anyone mistakenly declared dead should contact them as soon as possible so they can take immediate action. You will have to provide at least one form of current identification, and to make sure you get a letter confirming that you’re alive in order to fix all the other issues the mistake caused.