So my dad is on disability/retirement pension and they received a letter stating that the SSA overpaid them the last few years and that my parents owe them $20,000. Now I'm sure this is chump change to many here and doesn't sound like a whole lot, but with the amount of bills they have to pay they have no hope in paying these people back for quite some time. Possibly 3 years at the earliest... the SSA sent a letter stating if they don't pay back that money they'll either stop the benefits or deduct money from each check to pay back the owed $20k.
All this to say that I'm infuriated by how evil these people are. It's clearly not my parents fault and they even state in the letter that it's not their fault, but they still spring this shit on their lap. Their lawyer apparently told them that nothing can be done about it either.
It's quite fucking disheartening. I've spent hours reading up articles and forum posts about other Americans dealing with this shit. I've read some crazy stories about the SSA going after the children and grandchildren of dead parents and trying to force them to pay tens of thousands of owed debt even though the children have absolutely nothing to do with it. There's supposedly this 10 year grace window where they won't go back further than 10 years to claim any debt, yet they're going back 40+ years for so many Americans and claiming money is still owed. It just seems like extortion to me.
Disheartening and unconstitutional as well. That's how it should be fought, imo. On constitutional grounds.