FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A Union City woman says a series of Social Security errors have left her fighting to protect her health care and housing even after she repaid more than $26,000 she says she never should have received.
Julie Spradlin, who has cerebral palsy and has not been able to work since 2012, said the problems began in October when she received a letter from the Social Security Administration stating she had been underpaid.
The agency told Spradlin it would double her monthly disability payment to more than $3,400 and cut her a $18,000 check for back pay.
Spradlin said she immediately knew the amount was wrong.
“We never thought the money would show up. Well, it did,” her brother Jonathan Spradlin said.
Spradlin and her brother said they repeatedly tried to return the money and asked the agency to stop sending additional payments.
“It felt like I was twisting their arm to get them to take the check,” Jonathan said.
Spradlin ultimately paid back more than $26,000 to the federal agency.
But that is when Spradlin received another letter from Social Security claiming she earned $142,000 in 2024 while working for a company called Treehouse Pooled investment in Cupertino, California.
But Spradlin has not worked in more than a decade.
“To sit over there making nothing but disability and then to get a letter saying that you made $142,000 and we’re going to cancel everything, I’ve been angry,” Jonathan said.
The phantom income has now put Julie’s medical coverage and federally subsidized housing at risk. She said she has already received a notice from the state denying Medicaid assistance based on the reported income.
“Am I going to get a knock on my door saying I’ve got 24 hours to go?” Spradlin said.
“I just want people to know that just because you get knocked down by something that the computer does or the world does to you, get back up,” she continued.
Channel 2 Action News contacted the Social Security Administration in May with detailed questions and provided documentation from Spradlin’s case. Follow-up requests also were sent.
The agency has not responded and has not acknowledged receiving the inquiries.
Channel2 Action News Investigates has been reporting on concerns with Social Security overpayments since 2020. Our 2023 investigative series exposed problems that the then-Commissioner of Social Security Martin “O’Malley called “clawback cruelty.”
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