The call comes about three weeks after the service. The man on the phone is polite and he has details. He knows the full name, the middle initial, the date of birth, the town. He says there is an unpaid balance on an account, that he is sorry to bother the family at a time like this, and that this really does need to be handled today.
None of that information was hard to get. Almost all of it was printed in the obituary, published on a funeral home website, and indexed by search engines within hours. Obituaries are one of the most reliably harvested sources of personal data there is, and the people who harvest them are not sentimental about the timing. The good news is that the defense is unglamorous and it works, and most of it is a handful of letters and phone calls that one person in the family can knock out in an afternoon. A quick note before we go on: this is general information and not legal advice, so talk with your own estate attorney about anything specific to the estate.
The Shape of the Problem
There are two different things going on and they call for different responses, so it helps to name them separately.
The first is identity theft of the deceased person, which the New York Department of State’s Division of Consumer Protection and others call ghosting. Criminals pull biographical details from published death notices and combine them with data they buy elsewhere, then open accounts, apply for loans, or file fraudulent tax returns in the dead person’s name. It works because of a timing gap. Death information takes a while to propagate through banks, lenders, and government systems, and during that window the person looks like a living adult with a long credit history and nobody watching the mail.
The second is impostor pressure aimed at the survivors. AARP describes fraudsters posing as government officials, debt collectors, or insurance agents and pushing families to pay supposed unpaid bills, often by wire transfer or gift card. Others pose as funeral home or cemetery staff to get financial information, or introduce themselves as an old friend of the deceased and work their way toward a request for money. These are not sophisticated. They are just well timed, aimed at people who are exhausted and inclined to be agreeable.
One Letter Covers All Three Credit Bureaus
This is the single highest value step in the entire list, and the part almost nobody knows is that you only have to do it once.
Equifax states directly that when one bureau adds a deceased notice to a person’s credit file, it notifies the other two, so you do not need to contact all three. Experian says the same thing from its side. A deceased notice on the file tells lenders that no new credit should be extended in this name, which closes the window that ghosting depends on.
- Send a copy of the death certificate plus the identifying details. Equifax asks for the deceased person’s legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of death, along with your own name, mailing address, and a copy of your identification. Experian asks for a certified copy of the death certificate.
- Include proof of authority if you are not the spouse. Both bureaus want court documents showing you are authorized to act for the deceased when the request does not come from a surviving spouse. That is generally the letters testamentary or letters of administration the probate court issued.
- Mail it certified with return receipt. Equifax’s published address for this is Equifax Information Services LLC, P.O. Box 105139, Atlanta, GA 30348-5139. Experian directs these to its Consumer Assistance Center at P.O. Box 4500, Allen, TX 75013, or through its online document upload. Certified mail gives you a date you can point to later.
- Pull the credit report before you send the notice. The report is the only complete inventory you will get of accounts in that person’s name, including ones the family has never heard of. AnnualCreditReport.com is the federally authorized site for free reports. Do this first, because it doubles as a checklist for everything else you have to close.
Worth knowing: Experian notes that the Social Security Administration also sends periodic lists of newly deceased people to the credit bureaus, and that funeral homes typically report the death to Social Security in the first place. That machinery exists, but it moves on its own schedule. Your letter moves faster.
Write the Obituary Like a Stranger Will Read It
This one is uncomfortable to think about, because an obituary is supposed to be a tribute and not a security document. But it is the most quoted piece of advice from every consumer protection office that writes about this, and a warm obituary does not require any of the details that make theft easier.
- Leave out the exact date of birth. Both AARP and the New York Division of Consumer Protection call this out specifically. Age at death, or simply the year of birth, tells the story just as well and is far less useful to a stranger.
- Skip the mother’s maiden name and the middle name. Maiden names are still used as identity verification questions at a surprising number of institutions. A full legal middle name is another matching field. Neither adds anything to the remembrance.
- Do not print the home address. If people need to send cards, use the funeral home’s address or a post office box. The home address in an obituary is an invitation in more ways than one.
- Be careful about announcing the service time publicly. AARP includes funeral service times in the list of details worth limiting. A widely posted time is a public announcement of exactly when the family’s house will be empty.
- Write about the person, not the paperwork. Where they worked, what they loved, who they raised. That is what people came to read. None of it helps a criminal.
How to Handle the Calls That Do Come
Some pressure will get through no matter what you do. The rules for handling it are simple enough to put on a sticky note by the phone, which is genuinely worth doing so that whoever answers is not making the decision alone.
- Nobody legitimate asks for gift cards or a wire transfer. Not a debt collector, not a government agency, not a funeral home. This one test catches most of it. Payment method is the tell.
- Knowing personal details proves nothing. The obituary gave them the name, the date, the family members, and the employer. Familiarity is the pitch, not evidence.
- You are almost certainly not personally on the hook. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is clear that surviving family members are generally not responsible for a deceased person’s debts out of their own pockets, with limited exceptions for co-signers, joint account holders, spouses in community property states, and executors with duties under state law. Texas is a community property state, so ask the attorney rather than the caller.
- Hang up and call back on a number you looked up yourself. Not the number they gave you, not the number on the caller identification display. If a real bill exists, the real company will still be there in an hour.
- Put one person in charge. The New York Division of Consumer Protection recommends designating a single person to control access to the deceased’s personal information. It also means one person hears all the calls and can spot the pattern instead of five relatives each hearing one story.
The Rest of the Checklist
- Confirm Social Security has the death on file. Funeral homes usually report it, but confirming costs one phone call and closes a big door.
- Cancel the driver’s license with the state. A live license record is a working identity document. This is a standard recommendation from consumer protection offices and it is easy to forget.
- Notify banks, card issuers, insurers, and the mortgage company in writing. Certified mail with a copy of the death certificate, so there is a paper trail with a date on it.
- Order death certificates both with and without cause of death. Many institutions only need the version without it, and handing out the medical details more widely than necessary serves nobody.
- Watch the mail for a few months. New card offers, welcome letters for accounts nobody opened, or collection notices for unfamiliar debts are the early signals. If something looks wrong, report it at IdentityTheft.gov, the Federal Trade Commission’s official reporting site, and file a report with local police.
The Bottom Line
Pull the credit report, then send one letter with the death certificate to a single credit bureau and let it notify the others. Keep the birth date, maiden name, and home address out of the obituary. Tell whoever answers the phone that no legitimate caller asks for gift cards. That combination handles the large majority of what comes at a grieving family, and none of it requires special expertise, just somebody willing to spend an afternoon on it.
Again, this is general information rather than legal advice, and your own estate attorney is the right person to ask about your situation. If you would like help sorting out accounts, locking down devices, or figuring out whether something that showed up in the mail is real, contact us here. We work with families and small businesses across Denton County and we are happy to take a look before anyone pays anybody.
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