priceless it is!

:thumbup:

My grandparents were very politically active and we still get phone calls for them. (We have their old phone #). I tell the caller they are working from a very old list as they died in 1996!!! Can hardly wait for the next election....NOT. I also got a bill from the local hospital 5 years after DGF passed. I told the billing dept. I like your humor, I hope is address is now "Heaven". She laughed and that was the end. Such is life.

piney

Simply sad, to much bureaucracy over death and there isn't any excuse for fraud of a persons identity who has died.

I had similar problems with the cable company. They told me that I couldn't cancel my father's account and he would have to call them. The problem was he had died the month before. They kept insisting that he had a contract and it would have to be honoured even though I kept trying to tell them that he had died, the account was closed and the bank would not cash any of his post dated cheques.

WOW! Great "heads-up" when considering our own mortality. Sure don't want to burden our survivors with this kind of pain. At the moment, I am trying to put my affairs in order so that my kids actually have a "list" of what to do and when. I'm wondering what, if anything, works to stop this sort of badgering? Any lawyers out there with simple advice to share?

When my DH passed away I called Capital One to get his card closed and they told me I had to send in the death certificate and a letter stating he had died. So after hanging up I had a brilliant idea - I gave all of his information to my SIL and asked him to call and say he was Ralph and he wanted to close the account. It worked, but there was no balance on the card at the time. Never got another bill or anything from them.

Since he passed I have moved 3 times and I still get mail for him at my new address where he never lived. I feel like calling these people and saying while weeping "Do you know how upsetting this is?"

I am a lawyer, and in a nutshell: no.

Lawyers are having this argument with various credit card companies and utilities companies all the time when they are trying to deal with winding up an estate.

It is, unfortunately, "normal" to be dealing with this level of stupidity in this sort of situation.

When my husband passed away I had to send a death certificate etc so I could collect part of his pension. I had to call there and this one woman insisted she had to talk to my husband before any changes could be made. I told her he died and wanted to know where they were on the claim. She still insisted she had to talk to him so I asked for a supervisor who could not believe this woman insisted on talking to him. I told her a couple of times do you know what dead means? Just makes a person wonder?

Are these people taught stupiity or is it a natural talent?

I think its an epidemic!!! When my stepfather died, my mother tried to cancel his cell phone. They needed to talk to him because that would be changing his plan and he had a contract..blah blah blah. Well, she brought him in to their storefront and plopped him down on the counter --- his ashes. The clerk who she was dealing with earlier was stunned. Finally said "I think I'll have you talk to my supervisor". They did cancel the service without any penalties after that. But, she says they're now sending him "we want you back" junk mail!!