1. TESTIMONIALS
I attended a disability seminar sponsored by TPMG last year
shortly after my husband passed away. He was on Social Security
disability at the time of his death. Although the seminar covered
disability claims, I happened to mention that my husband and I
had been taking care of our 11 year-old grandson since birth
but unfortunately did not explore the possibility of filing for
benefits on my husband’s account before he died. I had
contacted a representative but was told our grandson could not
file for survivor benefits since we did not adopt him before my
husband passed away. Mr. Ponder informed me that was not
true and that Social Security was unique in the fact benefits for
a dependant grand-child could be approved even when the
adoption of the child was after the death of the wage-earner.
Mr. Ponder even sent me the SSA rules covering such benefits and
suggested I seek attorney consultation from a representative
versed in state adoption rules. I followed Mr. Ponder’s advice,
and was able to not only get benefits for my grandchild but also
benefits for me since the eligible grand-child was in my custody.
Needless to say, if not for Fred getting directly involved in my
case, I would have lost thousands of dollars in survivor benefits
to which I was legitimately entitled! Many thanks to The Ponder
Media Group for its interest in my case!
Ruth H.
When you gave a disability training session for Oak Clinic you encouraged
applicants to file a disability claim in person and avoid on-line or telephone
filing. I told you that I had already filed through the internet but had not
received a decision yet, and that I had a representative. You informed me
that I was responsible for making sure all evidence was collected and that I
should personally make sure this was done. You emphasized that sometimes
serious problems arise with not filing in person because of the paper intensive
effort associated with disability claims, the chance for errors are increased
and that many times available evidence is not secured from doctors who had
treated me. Afterwards, I called my representative and insisted she follow-
up with SSA to make sure all of the available records had been collected. We
found out that only 2 of the 5 doctors who had treated me had submitted
reports, and none of the specialists reports were in the record. We informed

2. SSA of this error and contacted the doctors as well. We also learned there
were misspellings of doctor’s names, all medications were not listed, and there
were wrong addresses in the 11-page form we filled out over the internet and
no one caught the errors! We corrected the errors and my claim was
approved based on the supplemental reports. I learned you have to watch out
for your own interests and not to rely on the SSA or the representative to do
so!
Gwen D.