In Which a Year of Crap Comes to an End

[firecat88]

Not sure where to post this, so I just went with here. If it's in the wrong spot, I apologize and, Mods, feel free to move it to your section of choice. ^_^

As some of you know, beginning in February of this year, I received several letters from the SSA. In these letters, they told me three things:

• I am no longer eligible to receive SSI payments
• I haven't *been* eligible to receive payments since 2009
• I owe *them* money for the two years that I have been receiving payments and I shouldn't have been.

Why all the trouble? A mutual fund that my grandmother set up for me when I was born. Back when I first applied for SSI (bear in mind, this was about 4 years ago), I told them straight out about this fund. They assured me that this was not a problem and that it wouldn't effect anything. Suddenly, though, it's now a problem and I apparently should have liquidated the fund years ago. Now, in the 2 years that I was supposedly ineligible to receive payments, not once did I hear anything about it. Hell, the only thing I *did* hear from them in those two years was the occasional letter about the amount of money I was receiving changing slightly. So why is it so much of a problem now? Who knows.

This entire year has consisted of fighting this whole mess, playing phone-tag with the SSA and USAA to get things ready for the final step- A hearing. Tomorrow, at 8AM, I have to be at the courthouse for my hearing at 8:30. Am I nervous? Yeah, a little. I'm fairly confident that we have a good case (we discovered recently that I had no access to the money in the mutual fund after all and never have). However, I've never had to do anything like this before. I think that's where the nervousness comes from. In any case, I'm happy that this is going to be over soon. I'm at the point where all I *really* want right now is for this mess to go away.

[bara]

All I can say is, "May the Force be with you"

[firecat88]

Thanks. *hug* Leaving for the hearing in a few minutes. I ask that anyone who reads this offers up a prayer for me to the deity of their choice. I'll let y'all know how it went when I get back.

EDIT: Well, that was fun. */sarcasm* First the good news- I managed to get through it without freaking out *too* badly. Largely, this is thanks to my dad. I swear, if my dad wasn't in the medical field, he'd make a really freakin' good lawyer. He did a lot of the talking with the judge, and was able to get everything across really well. The other good news is that both the judge and the woman who was transcribing the entire hearing (there's a name for this, but I cannot think of it off the top of my head) stenographer seemed to agree that this whole situation is horse shit with a side of bull crap.

The bad news- Even the bad news isn't *too* terrible. We have to get a copy of the statement that says that the money from the now-liquidated account was indeed sent to my grandmother, so we've got 2 weeks to get that done and sent to the judge as further evidence toward my case. Also, the judge apparently has no control over the supposed overpayment issue. For that, I'll need to go another round with the local SSA office. I'm ready to do that, though, if that's what it takes.