Social Security Took Thousands Of Dollars Woman's Bank Account After She Died, But Months Later Still No Refund For The Family

CHICAGO (CBS) – Days after a suburban man's mother died, he noticed large withdrawals from her bank account.

Tim Carlberg feels beaten down by his almost four month battle with the Social Security Administration.

Less than ten days after his 89-year-old mother died in August, someone from the social security office electronically swooped in and withdrew five payments from her bank account.  The problem is, they were only supposed to take back one payment, from the month she died.

"You feel like no one's fighting for you," Carleberg said.

Instead, social security withdrew $7,028 more than owed. They did it all within three days.

Carlberg says he noticed the withdrawals almost immediately and called social security.  An employee acknowledged the wrong date of death had been recorded.

Dorothy Carlberg died Aug. 21st of this year.  Social security entered it as March 21st.

"I thought everything was taken care of the first time I talked to somebody, but here we are three months later," Carlberg said.

Dozens of phone calls, hours of headaches and several form submissions later, Carlberg still has no refund.

"We can't get any answers. That's the biggest frustration. Nobody seems to know, and then they don't let you talk to anybody to get the answers. And then it changes," Carlberg said.

After a call with CBS 2 Monday, Carlberg says a social security employee reached out to him, asking for birth certificates from his entire family.  But again, there was no estimate as to when they'd get the cash back.

"It's a double standard.  Definitely," Carlberg said.

A social security spokesperson says he can't comment on any specific case.  When CBS 2 pressed him about how long, hypothetically, it should take to remedy an error made on social security's end, he'd only say they work closely with those impacted to get it corrected as quickly as possible.