I frequently get emails from readers who are upset and confused because the government says they have been paid Social Security benefits they were not due. As a result, they get a letter from the Social Security Administration demanding that the money be repaid. The overpaid amount can be a few hundred dollars, or sometimes it can be thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

There are many different reasons why people may have received Social Security benefits they were not due. The most common scenario involves the archaic and confusing earnings penalty. (This is the law that limits the amount of money a Social Security beneficiary under the age of 66 can make — a law I think should be repealed.) Other folks get overpaid because they fail to report something that could impact their eligibility for benefits, like the receipt of a pension from a job that was not covered by Social Security, for example. In very rare cases, a person can get overpaid because SSA simply miscalculated their benefit amount.

Whatever the reason for the problem, I will use today's column to offer some advice to people who have received one of those dreaded overpayment letters from SSA.

Of course, there are some people who know they have been overpaid and accept the fact that they have to repay whatever amount they received that they were not due. If you are still getting monthly benefits, the overpayment letter usually says they will suspend your Social Security checks until the overpaid amount has been recovered. If that will be a financial hardship for you, you can ask that they take the money back in smaller monthly installments. For example, they could deduct $100 per month from your monthly benefits until the entire amount has been repaid.

If you are no longer getting Social Security benefits when you get the overpayment letter (this often happens with people whose disability benefits have stopped or with former childhood beneficiaries), then you will be asked to remit the overpaid amount directly to SSA by writing them a check. Once again, they will initially ask that you repay the entire amount, but you can ask to repay it via the "installment plan." When you talk to a Social Security agent about this, he or she will probably tell you that there is a rule that says the overpayment must be fully repaid in 36 months. But it has been my experience that you can get them to bend those rules a bit. Frankly, they will just be happy to get the money back from you, no matter how long it takes.

So far, I've been discussing what to do if you acknowledge the overpayment and want to pay it back. But as is more often the case, most people who get overpayment letters are confused and irritated and not sure what to do. The rest of this column is for them.

The first thing you should do is look for that part of the letter that tells you what you can do about the alleged overpayment. It says you have 60 days to take some action. What action you take depends on the circumstances.

If you don't agree with what SSA is telling you — in other words, if you believe you were never overpaid in the first place — then you should file an appeal. This involves filling out a simple one-page form in which you state the reasons for your disagreement. This first appeal will generally be reviewed by someone at your local Social Security office. He or she may even call you into the office to discuss the matter. If that appeal is turned down, and you still maintain that you are right and SSA is wrong, then eventually you will end up at a hearing before a Social Security judge. (You can bring a lawyer along to this hearing, but I think you will learn that most lawyers won't take on Social Security overpayment cases. Frankly, there is no money in it for them.) If you lose your case before the judge, then you will simply have to accept the fact that you have been overpaid and make arrangements to pay it back.

If you acknowledge the fact that you have received Social Security benefits you were not due, but you can't afford to pay the money back, then you can file for a waiver of the overpayment. Your overpayment will be waived, or essentially written off, if you can demonstrate two conditions. First, you must prove to SSA that the overpayment was not your fault. And second, you must show that paying back the money will cause you a financial hardship You do the latter by filling out a form that lists your monthly income and your monthly expenses.

Sadly, there are many people who would be financially hard pressed to repay an overpayment, but who will never get the overpayment waived because they cannot prove that they were without fault. It's a simple fact that most people get overpaid because of something they did, e.g., earn too much money; or because of something they failed to report to SSA, e.g, the receipt of a public pension. Unless they somehow manage to repay it, they will have this debt hanging over them the rest of their lives.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has the answer. Contact him at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.