Barking at a Hole in the Fence

Some people just don’t get it…but they will soon. So will all their friends and family.

While sitting in the orthopedic doctor’s waiting room/torture chamber with my husband, I happened to grab a handful of newspaper castoffs to read while we waited a small eternity. A quick glance at the obituaries gave me both pause and concern.

I know I can’t warn the world by myself, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that one lady’s obituary notice took up 2/3 of the length of one column: there was everything in that message—from her address, complete birth date, work place, occupation, and marriage statistics to her long line of friends and relatives (complete with cities and states), her hobbies and tastes, and her favorite dance steps. All that was missing was her bra and underwear size, and whether or not she had false teeth (I’m betting she did). The ol’ gal probably wore Hanes Her Way underwear.

I moved on—there were other notices with just as equally incriminating information, but none so long. This one single page of our local newspaper could have fed me for a year had I been an ID thief!

To my relief, someone out there got the message and printed a modest notice, one that consisted of the deceased’s name, when he died, and where the funeral was to be held—nothing more. “Yay!” I mentally shouted. What more needs to go into an obituary notice?

Why do we feel the need to expose every last shred of the deceased’s evidence of life on earth in the paper’s obituary columns? We don’t even think about who else is reading them, and worse, what they’ll do with information gotten from our time of need.

Wouldn’t it be just awful if the final “dignity” visited upon poor old Ethel or Eddie is the existence of a twin? A twin who has the exact name and all other vital statistics, and the newfound credit lines to go with them? All those new credit bills will end up going to the estate of the original ID owner—causing the entire family to roll over in the grave with the newly-resurrected. Proving someone’s dead is just as hard as proving someone isn’t, especially in this day and age of document fraud and identity theft. Official-looking documents (the kind with seals and notaries) can be faked just like any ordinary document—I remember noticing old notary stamp guns in a government surplus auction I attended long before this kind of crime became the norm.

It doesn’t take much to replace the stamp heads with modern ones…even stolen ones. Watermarked “official” paper can also be stolen, as can cashier’s check blanks, money order blanks, all kinds of voucher blanks, and letterhead stationery. Hell, you can even create YOUR OWN watermarked paper for documents!

I just hate like hell to see ol’ Ethel’s family have to suffer one more loss—the loss of estate—just because someone got greedy with the contents of her obituary notice placed by loving friends and/or family. She, like all of us, should be allowed to go in peace and dignity, but someone will have other plans for her.

“Ethel” will live once again, I am sure, to roam the malls, car dealerships, and maybe even real estate markets with new lines of credit on the information given away in her obituary. “Ethel” may be younger, a completely different nationality, or a different gender altogether. “Ethel” may even go back to work and resume contributions to Social Security. There may even be more than one “Ethel” to spring from this one faux pas. This poor woman will know no rest.

I ask you, the reader, to sit down and have a conversation with your elderly loved ones—even the entire family—about identity theft, document fraud, and unwittingly placing food out for the ID vultures (who pray on the living AND the dead) through something as innocent as an obituary notice. When so much seemingly innocuous information is placed in such a public format, somebody’s going to make use of it because it’s there, beckoning to be used. When this information is breached and misused, it nearly takes an act of Congress to make it all right again (as some victims can tell you), and in the case of dead people, it affects the estate—which means the rest of the family. The deceased’s troubles will become your troubles, and you will have already had enough trouble just dealing with the loss in the family.

Form a plan to:

1. curb the information in the obit notice.

2. put a credit freeze on the records of the deceased. If not possible, get a death notation on their credit record.

3. make double-damned sure Social Security, any pension plans, and investment firms knows of the death, and to stop paying out benefits to anyone but a listed beneficiary if a payout is due. Otherwise, a filed change of address (by anyone) can re-route all the deceased’s mail to another address, allowing more time for any fraud to play out.

4. have the mail go to a secured mailbox—one with a lock on it. Street side boxes and door slots are just too easy to get into.

5. know who the executor is, and what their duties are ahead of time. Know the location of certain papers, and know their validity and current status—an “internet will” isn’t legal, nor is something scrawled in haste on binder paper (unless an attorney is present when scrawling). Other dead people, minors, missing people, soldiers in Iraq, or incarcerated people named as beneficiaries or executors aren't very helpful either, so discuss a backup beneficiary/executor plan and put it in writing. Make sure all legal documents are kept up to date.

6. safely dispose of any documents relating to the estate—old files, old business cards, passports and old photo IDs, old documents, old membership cards (especially warehouse store cards with photos) etc. are all ripe for the picking.

7. know record retention for the estate—some documents must be kept for up to 2 years after the settlement date. Most everything ought to be kept for a year just to prove they’ve been closed out and settled. *AOL will be a stick in your craw—they don’t want to let go of anyone, alive or dead, and it may take legal action to get AOL to close out a dead person’s account once and for all (it did for us). Your closing confirmation number will be the savior here, so keep it handy when dealing with anything relating to AOL.

8. notify friends and family of the death by means other than a newspaper ad or e-mail. Get a list of contacts, or know where one can be found--make sure it's current, and know who to contact and who to leave out. Leave no public trace of the loss (this means e-mails, blogs, etc.) until AFTER the estate is settled and secured.

Don't feed the ID vultures any more, and train the rest of the family to do likewise. This is a crime that pays well, and it isn't going to go away until we go to biometrics--then, thieves will have to resort to cutting off fingers and gouging out eyes to steal your stuff. No thief wants a murder or grave robbing charge (felonies?) added to his record.