"It was only a couple of days until they pulled back the funds, but I was pretty angry since my mother and I were still on that account and had every right to access the rest of the funds in there."
A SSA employee (SSAE) once gave me the advice to never, ever mix SS funds with non SSA funds and to never jointly own SS funded account. Said SSAE acknowledged that in real life joint owners on SS funded accounts are common. Though it is the common way of money management, during our phone call SSAE made it clear the SSA systems were never designed for doing this. SSAE said they get many, many phone calls because accounts are unexpectedly restricted when one joint owner dies. And depending on the amount of money actually owed (an example is a LO's overpayments that LO didn't disclose to the other account owners), the account can be stripped clean.
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Summary of the advice from SSA to me during phone call:
Don't commingle SS funds with non SSA funds.
Don't have joint account owners on SS funded accounts.
Don't expect joint money to remain in an account after locked by SSA and money clawed back.
My moms credit union froze and consolidated all 3 of her accounts, to an entirely new account, because that's their policy. SS tried 3 times to redeposit her final check to no avail.