The risk of becoming an identity theft victim, as we rediscover from time to time, does not end when a person passes on.  Losing a loved one is always devastating, and of all the things that could bring up memories of their lives, calls from creditors about loved ones is not something many would expect. No one ever imagines receiving a call from a collections agency demanding to speak to your deceased relative because credit accounts they supposedly opened recently are delinquent.

Is this a prank? You ask, but it is not. How did this happen? How did your deceased relative apply for and get a new Visa card and forget to pay the bill? 90% of the time it is not a mistake or a prank. This is the work of modern-day grave robbers, identity thieves who stop at nothing to take advantage of someone else’s identity.

How does this happen? Obituaries printed in local newspapers give short descriptions about the lives people leave behind, an identity thief could either randomly pick any name and research it on public records, which are freely available to all, for more information on the victim’s previous locality and in many cases their social security number is also retrievable. Armed with this information it does not matter if the victim is 6 feet under or vacationing in Aruba, the rest is easy for the identity thief.

Authorities believe that cases like this are rare and it is recommended that families of deceased identity theft victims act immediately and put a “fraud alert” on their relatives credit file. In cases like this there are still many types of identity theft that can happen on the credit files and with the social security numbers of the deceased for many years.

There are many types of identity theft that have not been uncovered yet, but with fraud alerts in place, the identity thieves are met with more obstacles. When fraud alerts are detected by companies that obtains credit information about an applicant, they’ll be alerted right away of the possibility of fraud. Typically this will trigger the company to do further verifications on the applicant by contacting the person directly.
When your loved ones pass on the last thing you worry about is that they would be victimized again in any way, but it is possible and it happens a lot with criminal rings who work in with the aid of social and medical workers to obtain information like social security numbers and credit card information.

What you can do to protect your deceased loved one? Here’s a quick list of things families can do to avoid this from tarnishing the memory of their loved ones:
•    Never provide specific details about your loved ones in their obituaries. Only provide the year of their birth, not the day and month. Also never provide their address, this is plenty of information for a thief to get started.
•    Contact the social security administration and inform them of the death of your loved one. Once the administration is informed they will always have a record that can be referenced in case the number is used. The social security administration can be contacted at 1-800-772-1213. You must be ready to provide the “death certificate” of your loved one should they request it.
•    Contact the credit card companies and banking institutions where you loved one did business and inform them as well. Their credit accounts and bank accounts should be frozen or closed. Again make sure you have a copy of the death certificate handy.
•    Contact all three credit bureaus and either fax them or mail them a copy of the death certificate. Find more information on how to contact the credit bureaus on our identity theft victims resources page.
•    Contact the DMV in your state and cancel the driver’s license and insist that they block any duplicates from being produced.
•    It would also be wise to order a copy of your loved ones credit report about a month after the death and following again a few more times in the following year.