Rep. Thomas Massie posted a text message screenshot to Twitter on Wednesday saying it showed a dead relative of a friend receiving a coronavirus stimulus check.
“Ok this is insane, but just the tip of the iceberg,” the Kentucky Republican tweeted along with a photo. “This is a direct text to me from a friend. I called to confirm this actually just happened.”
Ok this is insane, but just the tip of the iceberg. This is a direct text to me from a friend. I called to confirm this actually just happened. pic.twitter.com/GBRPcmYMXW
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 15, 2020
“It’s the tip of the iceberg because what about the misplaced $12 million dollar loan or $20 million through these other programs?” Massie told the Washington Examiner after confirming the authenticity and accuracy of the text message.
“Everyone is in such a rush to get this money out the door and into the economy that the normal tests that you run on these accounts and recipients before you give the money shouldn’t have all been suspended. It’s just like a mad rush to get the money out the door.”
Massie added that this incorrect payment also begs the question of whether deceased people are receiving ballots and stimulus money, adding that several people who follow him on social media asked that very question.
“If this is how the lists are being made up in a crisis, and people are proposing mail-in ballots, just like this $1,200 program and the small-business loan program are ripe for abuse, so are these mail-in ballots.”
It was reported earlier this week that over 28 million mail-in ballots have been lost in the last decade.
An Indiana man went to the bank recently to see if his stimulus check had been deposited and realized his bank account had $8.2 million deposited into it instead of $1,700.
The issue was rectified, and the millions of dollars were removed, but caused him to wonder if the payments are being doled out correctly.
“Of course it makes you pause and think what is going on, if there is some kind of clerical error or what have you. They should be on top of it,” Calvin said. “It kind of sucks you go from being a millionaire on paper one second, then back to being broke again, but I guess once you’re poor, you ain’t got nowhere else to go but up.”
A Florida woman encountered a similar issue finding approximately $8 million in her bank account when she went to retrieve her stimulus money.
“How many of those aren’t getting rectified?” Massie asked in response to news of those multimillion dollar mistakes.
It has also been reported that scammers are actively trying to steal coronavirus stimulus checks from the public.
“Scammers have no shame, and nothing, not even a global health crisis, is off-limits,” Karen Hobbs, assistant director at the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Consumer and Business Education, said.
The Treasury Department announced earlier that 80 million people will receive their stimulus checks as part of the $2 trillion relief package bill signed by President Trump this week.
“This administration is delivering fast and direct economic assistance to hardworking Americans, and we hope these payments will bring them much-needed relief,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
