MACON, Ga. — Derek Brooks had a seizure in November 2021 and was in the ICU. He was transferred in June 2022 to a rehab facility in Griffin, Georgia.
Brooks got a call from his brother who needed his help. The retired Navy vet tried to send him money, but the bank told him there weren't enough funds in his account.
He said that it did not make sense.
"I got nine checks," Brooks said. "That's over $14,000. What do you mean?"
Brooks called the Social Security Administration office to figure out where his money went. They stopped sending the money to the account he was trying to use. Because of that, he still needed to know where his payments were going.
"They chose to stop sending my money to Western Union Netspend," and instead, they sent it to a bank in Charlotte, N.C., he said.
Brooks only knows one close relative in North Carolina who was also responsible for making sure his rent was paid at McAfee Towers in East Macon.
Brooks found out while he was in the ICU that the Macon Housing Authority decided his apartment was abandoned and threw out his belongings.
"I need to know what's going on because probably about in another month, I said I'm probably going to be getting out of this rehab center. I don't have anywhere to go," Brooks said.
Brooks told 13WMAZ that the Social Security Administration never called him to verify the transfer or ask why he wanted to have money sent to an account in North Carolina.
"You're in charge of 50 million people's checks every month, so somebody can just call up on the phone and say 'Hey I'm a relative I want their money' and you just send it to them," Brooks said.
Brooks was told to file nine separate reports for each payment he didn't receive himself. He was able to receive two missed payments.
He reached out to the United States of the Treasury, the Office of Inspector General and Sen. Raphael Warnock's office.
Afterward, he filed a police report with Bibb County Sheriff's Office and with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Later, an investigator from the Adult Protective Services reached out to him letting him know this was elderly abuse.
Brooks says he is not to blame for the mistake.
"The only thing that I did was I got sick. That's all I did, and so now it's a crime to get sick? When you wake everything you owed is gone," Brooks said.
We reached out to both law enforcement offices and they say it is under investigation.