Pinellas County, Fla. citizen Mike Rieker depends on his veterans benefits every month to survive. Rieker, 69, is a  Vietnam War Navy veteran and is seriously dependent on his VA benefits. He began to worry when his check wasn’t direct deposited to his bank account on Monday like always. Rieker, who lives in Dunedin, Fla., decided to call the VA and find out what happened.

He spoke with someone at the Florida VA who then proceeded to look him up in their massive database, according to a report at SeattlePI. The person then proceeded to tell Rieker that his benefits had been stopped because he was dead. Seeing no use in trying to argue with the VA worker, Rieker decided to call his congressman. Rieker also soon learned that there were six other veterans in the Tampa Bay area who lost their benefits because the were listed as dead with the VA.

Rieker contacted U.S. Representative David Jolly who represents his district in Congress. It was not a strange call for Jolly. He had already handled five other cases like Rieker’s in the last year and a half. Jolly commented that people would be shocked at how often this sort of thing has happened. He has called on the VA Secretary, Robert McDonald, to open an investigation into why this sort of thing keeps happening.

Last fall, 86-year-old Mary Ann Clough got a letter from the VA. It was a letter that was addressed to her family offering condolences on her death. She went to the bank and her money was all gone. The bank told that was because she was dead. Representative Jolly has helped both Clough and Rieker with their problems. All has been restored to both and Rieker was told his money will be deposited in another week or so.

The mystery seemed solved when Rieker said a man in Arizona with the same name had died so the VA guessed all of the Mike Rieker’s were now dead.