PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — In early January, WPTV spoke with a Jupiter couple who were allegedly overpaid more than $70,000 by the Social Security Administration, leading to a pause in their monthly disability payments. Since then, WPTV has heard from another Palm Beach County couple in the same boat.
In a series of letters, Kat Conner and Jim Lehfeldt of Palm Beach Gardens received life-changing financial news from the Social Security Administration.
"Basically what it says is that they overpaid me a little bit over $81,000," Conner said.
The overpayments allegedly happened over about four years. Until it's all paid back, the letters said, Conner's monthly disability payments will be on hold, along with her retirement benefits too.
"First we tried calling Social Security. That was a nightmare, just on hold and you get passed and passed and passed," Conner said. "Then we went to Social Security on Clematis (Street) and spoke with somebody [who] said, basically, he didn't have access to all of our records."
Conner said she then decided to deplete one of her retirement accounts to start repaying the SSA.
She contacted WPTV after Gloria and Antonio Castro shared their story in early January because they recently went through the same thing.
"Social Security is claiming that we have an overpayment of $36,092 point 80 cents and that they want their money back," Gloria said. "And then we got another letter on Nov. 3 claiming that he owes $34,830 and 80 cents."
When the SSA started withholding their checks, the Castros contacted their congressman, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and his office was able to help get their payments resumed.
However, they are still waiting to hear if they still owe all of that money.
"We were thrilled that there was somebody else, and we decided to contact you and to contact Brian Mast," Conner said.
Conner told WPTV that she and her husband mailed Mast's office a letter last week.
Mast previously told WPTV in a statement: "I would encourage anyone having issues with the Social Security Administration, or any other federal agency, to contact my office for assistance."
When WPTV originally contacted the SSA, a spokesperson said: "Due to privacy laws we cannot discuss individual cases."
In a recent statement to NBC News, the agency said the issue is often due to errors in their system and is working on making improvements to prevent overpayment.
"It's their error, not our error, and we feel like, you know, it's wrong," Lehfeldt said.
