
Nilufer of 2270 Agave Bay 7, AZ on Dec. 9, 2005
I am a disabled, self-employed person. I work from home as a language interpreter. My disabilities began in l987 and I have been on SSDI since l991, whereas my income was too low in the past, for why I received SSI in addition for a while. In l992, the SSA decided that I should not present my paystubs every month but send them an annual tax return. I followed their instruction and sent in my tax return in l993.
Soon, they accused me of having caused an overpayment. I retained an attorney in the process. The judge (Judge Turner, Santa Cruz/CA) stated in writing that he could not adjudicate the overpayment claim without correspondences obtained from the SSA in Baltimore. The SSA in Baltimore didn't have the requested correspondences, yet Judge Turner decided I was at fault. During the appeal process, I had a car accident and left California soon after. (I was unable to cope with the expensive rents in California.) I was not able to pursue the Appeal process unfortunately at that time.
I was living in Texas when the SSA came up with an overpayment allegation of over $ 6,000.--, which in no time was inflated to $ 18,000.-- (SSDI and SSI combined).
When I moved to Arizona in 2001, my case was referred to the Prescott Social Security Administration. I have tried to resovle this matter by correspondence with them, however with no success.
In 2001, my income was too high, for why the SSDI and SSI were stopped. In 2002, my income dropped substantially and I qualified for SSDI reinstatement. However, the SSA decided to do a disability review. I had applied for reinstatement of SSDI payments in November 2002. During the disability re-evaluation, the SSA paid provisional SSI payments. The disability review was completed in March 2004 with a favorable decision. In April 2004, the SSDI payments were resumed, however with incorrect amounts for a few months, as their District Manager Eugene Moreno refused to accept the DES' decision that I was disabled. By August 2004, Mr. Moreno had no choice but to acknowledge that the SSDI was reinstated as per November 2002. Instaed of paying the difference of SSI and SSDI to compensate due SSDI payments, Mr. Moreno deducted Medicare premiums from my SSDI pyaments although the State was paying the Medicare premiums already. Mr. Moreno also began to collect alleged overpayments without a decision and hearing, by disregard of SSA policies and guidelines. He skipped due process and violated SSA laws.
I contacted Senator McCain for help. Senator McCain's office investigated my complaint and decided that Mr. Moreno should not collect Medicare premiums as they were already paid by the State of Arizona. Mr. Moreno had to refund me the wrongfully collected Medicare premiums. By Senator McCain's decision, Mr. Moreno had to refund also the illegally collected overpayment recovery monies back to me.
As my dealings with the SSA in Prescott (Mr. Eugene Moreno) proved to be useless because he continued to disregard facts in the matter of alleged overpayments, I retained a Social Security attorney, who took my case this summer. This attorney mislead me to the belief that he was representing me. The overpayment allegation is awaiting an ALJ Hearing in May 2006. In November 2005, the SSA contacted me for a telephone interview. They recorded the interview by my consent. The attorney chose not to participate in the interview.
I was asked questions about income, assets, and resources. I gave honest answers. The SSA then sent me an error-loaden review report, giving me 10 days to correct errors. The attorney stated that I had to send my corrections to the attorney, not to the SSA. I sent my corrections to the attorney within 8 days. The same day I received a new overpayment allegation from the SSA, stating I was overpaid Supplemental Security benefits of & 2,500.-- in 2003. This was a wrong decision.
In 2003, I was paid provisional Supplemental Security payments, to be replaced by SSDI payments when the SSDI payments were reinstated, effective retroactively since November 2002. I asked the attorney to appeal. The attorney's assistant questioned me about my status:Are you receiving SSDI or SSI ? he asked. I found the documents that confirmed that I was receiving SSDI. I was not receiving SSI. The last SSI payment was paid in December 2003. In January and February, and March 2004 I received neither SSDI, nor SSI. The attorney withdrew as soon as I faxed/mailed my proof that I was receiving only SSDI. He no longer represents me. He insisted I should present my bank statements to the SSA for 2003, 2004, and 2005 to show my assests and resources. The SSA and the attorney claimed that I had exceeded the resources/asset limits in 2003, 2004, and 2005. SSDI receipients assets/resources are irrelevant as long as they don't receive SSI. I do not receive SSI since December 2003, as I qualified for SSDI since Nov. 2002. The SSI overpayment allegation is fiction. The SSA ows me SSDI backpayments for the time frame of November 2002 through March 2004. To Senator McCain, Mr. Eugene Moreno promised -in writing- that he would process these backpayments, however he never followed up with it. I have a copy of that letter.
Mr. Eugene Moreno seems to have manipulated my SSDI information in the SSA data system, now pretending I am receiving SSI, not SSDI. This manipulation is illegal. I am receiving only SSDI, no SSI. I don't have to expose assets/resources to the SSA. They can ask me only for my income, which I always present to them by tax returns, every year, as ordered by the SSA.