WASHINGTON _ To help combat an economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans are receiving stimulus checks this week _ including some who are dead.
Relatives of the deceased were notified Wednesday of a direct deposit in their loved ones' accounts despite some banks' websites crashing from the heavy traffic, according to posts on social media.
But they weren't sure where to go from there.
"Will they want the $1,200 back?" a widow whose husband died last year asked on Twitter after she received the full $2,400 payment for married couples.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Internal Revenue Service didn't have guidelines on its website for economic impact payments sent in error to the deceased.
Nor were they willing to comment on the projected number of payments "mistakenly sent to ineligible recipients and whether the agency has a system in place to reclaim the payments," according to Just The News, a conservative-leaning media outlet.
This isn't the first time it's happened.
When the Obama administration passed a $13 billion economic stimulus package to combat the Great Recession in 2009, about 89,000 checks worth $250 each were sent to dead and incarcerated people, The Atlantic reported.
According to a 2010 audit by the Office of the Inspector General and the Social Security Administration, 71,688 of those went to the deceased. But a startling 41,000 checks issued in error were returned, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Spending Social Security money issued to someone else is illegal in the U.S. _ but it's "rarely prosecuted for small amounts," according to the Journal.
"At least one person has been prosecuted for cashing a stimulus check not issued to them, in one of the few accusations of stimulus fraud to date," the Journal reported in 2010.
The SSA typically consults what's known as the "Death Master File" to prevent identity fraud associated with social security funds.
But the 2010 audit found some deaths were reported after the administration certified the stimulus payments, and that the SSA "relied on questionable data" or failed to review all available records _ such as the "Numident for death information," which is used to compile the Death Master File.
According to the Journal, about $12 million in mistaken payments from 2009 wasn't returned.
