HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — When Adeline Reed received a letter from her pension fund telling her she’d been overpaid for nearly a decade, she was shocked.
“I didn’t believe it,” said Reed, 74, of Holland.
According to the letter from the Kraft Heinz Retirement and Savings Plan Center, Reed’s monthly payment of $724 was supposed to drop by $350 when she turned 65.
“It was determined that an error was made in distributing your pension benefit,” read the letter. “We recently confirmed that your supplemental benefit did not stop at age 65 and therefore you have received benefits that are not due to you. This resulted in an overpayment to you in the amount of $38,150…. which you are obligated to repay to the Plan.”
Reed retired in 2002 from the Holland Lifesavers Plant, which shut down and moved the work to Canada.
“I thought they were miscalculating or something, because the other letter that I have, dated 2008, was saying ‘for life’, so I wasn’t worrying about nothing like this," she said. This is a shock.”
The 2008 letter, which she received just two months before her 65th birthday, verified that she was getting $724.56 a month.
“Your benefits began on November 1, 2002 and will continue throughout your lifetime,” read the letter from Kraft, dated Sept. 11, 2008.
According to the letter Reed recently received from the company, now called Kraft Heinz, the fund only discovered the overpayment “during a recent review.”