Social Security keeps paying until someone tells the agency that a beneficiary has died, and prosecutors say a New York man put that gap to use. David Darling is accused of using his dead brother’s ATM card to take $109,746 in Social Security benefits, with withdrawals beginning the day after the death. The case is an indictment. Darling has not been convicted.
A withdrawal the day after the death
The case appears in a Justice Department announcement about a one-month benefit-fraud takedown, which describes United States v. David Darling as an indictment in the Northern District of New York. Prosecutors say Darling had control of his deceased brother’s ATM card and began withdrawing money the day after the death. The Social Security Administration was unaware of the death and kept paying into the account. According to the announcement, Darling continued until the total reached $109,746 in stolen benefits.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Arne Soldwedel is prosecuting. The announcement does not say how long the withdrawals lasted, whether a funeral home was involved, or how the death went unreported. Those details, if they matter, would come out in court filings.
At $109,746, the case is one of the larger amounts on the department’s list, which totals $1.34 million in intended loss across 17 defendants in 11 districts. SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano said in the announcement that the agency is working with the department and is “aggressively pursuing fraud.” For a household, the alleged total shows how much can leave an account when a card stays in use after a death goes unreported.
Three charges, one with a two-year floor
The indictment lists three federal counts: access device fraud, theft of government property and aggravated identity theft. The announcement gives the maximums in that order as 15 years, 10 years and a two-year mandatory minimum. Only the identity-theft count carries a required minimum term. The other two figures are ceilings, and no sentence exists because there has been no conviction.
The choice of charges reflects the mechanics alleged. An ATM card is an access device, the money withdrawn is government property, and using a dead person’s card to reach an account in his name is the identity element.
Who tells Social Security that a beneficiary has died
Social Security’s own guidance puts most of the reporting on the funeral home. The agency’s page on what to do when someone dies says funeral homes generally tell the agency, so families do not typically need to. Where no funeral home is involved, the family calls SSA with the deceased person’s name, Social Security number, date of birth and date of death. A separate SSA frequently asked question tells families to notify the agency as soon as possible when someone getting benefits dies, and to give the funeral director the deceased person’s Social Security number so the report can be made.
In the Darling case, prosecutors’ description is of a payment stream that simply continued because nobody had told SSA. The announcement does not say whether anyone tried to.
The payment for the month of death
The agency’s publication How Social Security Can Help When a Family Member Dies is direct about deposits that arrive after a death. If the deceased was receiving benefits, the benefits received for the month of death and any later months must be returned. For a direct deposit, the family is told to contact the bank or other financial institution and ask it to return funds received for the month of death or later. Checks that arrive afterward are not to be cashed; SSA asks that they be sent back.
That bank instruction is the step that concerns a deposit account like the one at the center of the Darling indictment. In the alleged scheme, money kept landing in an account someone else could reach with a card. Under SSA’s instructions, money that arrives after a death is not spent or left sitting there, and the bank is asked to send it back.
The same publication says eligible family members may be able to receive survivors’ benefits for the month the beneficiary died. That is a separate matter from the returned payment, and the publication tells families to contact SSA to make sure they receive all the benefits they are entitled to.
A surviving spouse’s first calls
For a surviving spouse, the sequence in the agency’s guidance is short. The funeral director gets the Social Security number. Payments for the month of death and later are returned. A one-time death payment of $255 may be available to a spouse who was living with the deceased; if there is no surviving spouse, certain children may qualify. Certain family members may also be eligible for monthly survivor benefits, which run through a separate application.
SSA lists its national number as 1-800-772-1213, with TTY service at 1-800-325-0778, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in most U.S. time zones. Families living abroad are directed to a Federal Benefits Unit or the International Call Center at 1-855-522-6936.
Death reporting and the deposits that follow it
Benefit payments keep arriving until Social Security is told about a death, and the payment for the month of death is one families are directed to return rather than spend. A surviving spouse can end up tracking a funeral-home report, a bank’s response and a call to the agency at the same time.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit is an 18-page kit with the 2026 payment calendar and a first-24-hours plan for a late or missing payment, both useful for telling which deposits are expected and which have stopped.
Click here to see The Social Security Check Protection Kit →
An AI assistant helped research and draft this article, and its figures were checked against the Justice Department and Social Security Administration pages linked above.
