If you think you are the only one on an identity thief’s target list, then you might want to think again because unfortunately, even your deceased relatives could be victimized. True people ought to understand and apply various ways to protect their identities from being stolen. However, you should also consider applying identity theft protection for your relatives who have already passed away.
It is almost unbelievable, but many crooks can be just this daring to meddle with a dead person’s personal information. Some of the ways thieves steal identities of those who died include watching obituaries, stealing death certificates, and even getting the information from websites that offer the Social Security Death Index file. These kinds of websites are created for the sake of genealogy research
Thinking about it, the most commonly reported perpetrator in cases where a child’s identity is stolen is the child’s parent. On the other hand, thieves stealing the deceased’s personal identity are often family members. This means that identity theft protection is doesn’t discount the fact that relatives could indeed be the suspects. Cases of a dead person’s identity being stolen by relatives holds specially true when the person who died suffered from a lengthy illness, mental confusion, or if there had been disagreements among the family members prior the death.
One reason why this happens is that financial institutions are not immediately notified when their customers pass away. Other than that, it takes time for the Social Security Administration to transmit the Death Master File to the financial industry. Until the institution receives word that the individual is deceased, the account remains active.
You can practice identity theft protection to ensure that no one takes advantage of your dead relative’s identity by notifying the Credit Reporting Agencies and the creditors about the situation. There is no other way for them to know that your relative has died and will keep his or her accounts open for up to ten years. And thieves can have the longest time purchasing items under his or her name if they get hold of the personal information.
The best identity theft protection you can do is to keep the social security number as private as possible because it is what thieves are after whether in living people and in deceased. Other than these, you can employ identity theft protection for the deceased sake through the following:
- Obtain at least 12 copies of the official death certificate when it becomes available. In some cases you will be able to use a photocopy, but some businesses will request an original death certificate. Since many death records are public, a business may require more than just a death certificate as proof.
- The executor or surviving spouse will need to discuss all outstanding debts and how they will be dealt with. You will need to transfer the account to another person or close the account. If you close the account, ask them to list it as: “Closed. Account holder is deceased.”
- Immediately contact the CRAs in writing and request a “deceased” alert be placed on their credit report. You may use the letter form outlined below. You should also request a copy of the credit report.
- If there is a surviving spouse or other joint account holders, make sure to notify the company that deceased’s name needs to be removed from the account. They may require a copy of the death certificate to do this, as well as permission from the survivor, or other authorized account holders.
- Contact all credit issuers, collection agencies, the CRAs and any other financial institution that needs to know of the death using the required procedures for each one.
