In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, a credit zombie is a person who has been erroneously declared dead by the

Social Security Administration The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government that administers Social Security (United ...

by being listed in its

Death Master File The Death Master File (DMF) is a computer database file made available by the United States Social Security Administration since 1980. It is known commercially as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). The file contains information about person ...

(commercially known as the

Social Security Death Index The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was a database of death records created from the United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File until 2014. Since 2014, public access to the updated Death Master File has been via the Limit ...

). It is unclear why living people are added to this list. As a result of the listing,

credit bureau A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit report ...

s return reports of "deceased" to entities seeking checks on the individuals'

credit report A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repayment of debts. A credit report is a record of the borrower's credit history from a number of sources, including banks, credit card companies, collection agencies, and governments. A bo ...

s, which can prevent people from obtaining credit, receiving government benefits, renting apartments, or securing jobs, and interfere with anything involving credit checks or Social Security. Credit zombies may even find their bank accounts frozen and have no access to their money. The term "credit zombie" is an analogy to the concept of the

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folkl ...

being a person who was once alive walking around as an animated corpse after death. A credit zombie is someone who is officially dead, while it is obvious that person is actually alive. The Social Security Administration accidentally declares about 1,000 people dead each month in its Death Master File. It is estimated that there could be 500,000 credit zombies in the U.S.

References

{{Reflist Social security in the United States

See also

References