Possible Stolen Identity - Need Help - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

clockworkgreen · 07-07-2004, 08:31 PM

Ok, here's the quick story I got from my mom.

Long story short, my dad was in the hospital last March '03. He died May '03.

My mom received a call tonight. The man claims he is from a collection agency and asks to speak to my dad. My mom explains he's deceased and asks what the problem is. He says he's from XYZ Collection Agency, and there's $800 past due on a Sprint Phone card bill he needs to collect. My mom says that isn't possible, and he asks "were the last digits of his social 6789?" and she then freaks and hangs up on him.

She then calls Sprint and says she received this call. She gives them my dad's social and they confirm there was a past due balance for an account, it had been opened March '03, but closed shortly thereafter due to lack of payment and then finally due to being flagged as fraud in October '03. They told her my dad's name and social and apparently home phone number were attached to the account, but his address was listed as an address in Philadelphia, about an hour from where we live. One operator accidentally gave her the "different" address on file, and when she was transferred to another operator, that operator said my mom shouldn't have been given that information. (Regardless, we have it, and if anyone is familar with Philadelphia, the address is in those ghetto houses near the Gas Works in South Philly. But it was still probably a fake address anyway.)

Anyway, so Sprint said the balance of the account was now $0.00 due to being flagged fraudulent and the account and case from Sprint's side were closed and my mom did not owe any money to Sprint.

This happened about 7:00EST when she got and received these phone calls. She immediately called Equifax and reported a fraud case on my dad's social, but did not speak to anyone in the fraud department (I guess they were closed, so she left a message). She called someone again tonight, they need her to fax a bunch of things (my dad's death cert, etc.) She's still calling tomorrow to make sure she has it all straight.

We just so happend to run a credit report on her this past weekend while I was home for 4th of July, and her accounts all look clean. My dad is still listed on some of her joint accounts, so if his ID was stolen in March '03, I think if they were going to try anything with the joint bank accounts it would have happened already. Regardless, my advice to my mom was to go to the bank tomorrow and get my dad's name off any of her joint accounts.

Does anyone have any further advice? I told her what I believe probably happened is when he was in the hospital, someone got hold of his social, opened this account with Sprint using his information, charged up a bunch of stuff, maybe even gave a fake address, and bolted. I guess we'll find out if we get a copy of his credit report, Equifax already blocked me from ordering one online and Experian seems to not let me either. I don't know if that's from recent information or trying to look up the credit report of a deceased (and I don't know quite how they'd know he was deceased, but I suppose they could through all sorts of channels.)

And what do we do about this credit agency, if it's actually a credit agency? After thinking about it, I have no reason to think it wasn't. They knew the balance, knew the company where it was due, had information and even confirmed the "different" address Sprint had on file for the account. So, if they're legit, how do we get them off our backs if they call again?

I guess moral of the story is, run credit reports.

And, does anyone know if after someone dies, if banks and credit cards and all these places are notified that person is deceased? If someone tries to use their social after death, does it get blocked? This seems to have happened right around the last few weeks of my dad being alive, so obviously, his social would come up that he was alive if that statistic was kept.

Any thoughts? Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far.

Karby · 07-07-2004, 08:39 PM

did you go here?
also, you might wanna check with the last of the three major credit beureus(sp?) just in case.

maleficent · 07-07-2004, 08:40 PM

Quote:

And, does anyone know if after someone dies, if banks and credit cards and all these places are notified that person is deceased? If someone tries to use their social after death, does it get blocked?

Death of a Spouse

Notify your spouse's credit card companies of the death and cancel his/her cards. Be sure to ask whether there are any death benefits associated with the card. Many companies provide accidental death insurance, which pay off credit balances in the event of a death.

It appears it's on the surviving spouse to take care of that -

Sounds like you have done all the right things, you can produce a death certificate and these charged happened after that date -- running the credit report is a good idea just to see what shows up

So sorry for your mom that she has to be put thru this...

clockworkgreen · 07-07-2004, 08:41 PM

Had not, but we are following those steps, if I managed to lose them in the mess of that OP. And Equifax said they will notify the 2 other credit bureaus for us if we send them the information.

clockworkgreen · 07-07-2004, 08:46 PM

Quote:

So sorry for your mom that she has to be put thru this... [/B]

Yeah, I am, too. And thanks. But I talked to her for a few hours tonight and kinda talked her off the ledge a little bit. She's just pissed that in the time my dad was in the hospital fighting for his life, someone's using his good name to do crap like this. I'm just glad that from what I can tell, there's not further damage, especially to her accounts right now as evidenced from running a clean credit report on her.

wonderwench · 07-07-2004, 08:50 PM

I have had to deal with this problem.

Here is a good resource.

http://www.identitytheft.org/

Check out the "What to do first" link.

07-07-2004, 08:31 PM	#1 (permalink)
clockworkgreen Psycho Location: DC	Possible Stolen Identity - Need Help Ok, here's the quick story I got from my mom. Long story short, my dad was in the hospital last March '03. He died May '03. My mom received a call tonight. The man claims he is from a collection agency and asks to speak to my dad. My mom explains he's deceased and asks what the problem is. He says he's from XYZ Collection Agency, and there's $800 past due on a Sprint Phone card bill he needs to collect. My mom says that isn't possible, and he asks "were the last digits of his social 6789?" and she then freaks and hangs up on him. She then calls Sprint and says she received this call. She gives them my dad's social and they confirm there was a past due balance for an account, it had been opened March '03, but closed shortly thereafter due to lack of payment and then finally due to being flagged as fraud in October '03. They told her my dad's name and social and apparently home phone number were attached to the account, but his address was listed as an address in Philadelphia, about an hour from where we live. One operator accidentally gave her the "different" address on file, and when she was transferred to another operator, that operator said my mom shouldn't have been given that information. (Regardless, we have it, and if anyone is familar with Philadelphia, the address is in those ghetto houses near the Gas Works in South Philly. But it was still probably a fake address anyway.) Anyway, so Sprint said the balance of the account was now $0.00 due to being flagged fraudulent and the account and case from Sprint's side were closed and my mom did not owe any money to Sprint. This happened about 7:00EST when she got and received these phone calls. She immediately called Equifax and reported a fraud case on my dad's social, but did not speak to anyone in the fraud department (I guess they were closed, so she left a message). She called someone again tonight, they need her to fax a bunch of things (my dad's death cert, etc.) She's still calling tomorrow to make sure she has it all straight. We just so happend to run a credit report on her this past weekend while I was home for 4th of July, and her accounts all look clean. My dad is still listed on some of her joint accounts, so if his ID was stolen in March '03, I think if they were going to try anything with the joint bank accounts it would have happened already. Regardless, my advice to my mom was to go to the bank tomorrow and get my dad's name off any of her joint accounts. Does anyone have any further advice? I told her what I believe probably happened is when he was in the hospital, someone got hold of his social, opened this account with Sprint using his information, charged up a bunch of stuff, maybe even gave a fake address, and bolted. I guess we'll find out if we get a copy of his credit report, Equifax already blocked me from ordering one online and Experian seems to not let me either. I don't know if that's from recent information or trying to look up the credit report of a deceased (and I don't know quite how they'd know he was deceased, but I suppose they could through all sorts of channels.) And what do we do about this credit agency, if it's actually a credit agency? After thinking about it, I have no reason to think it wasn't. They knew the balance, knew the company where it was due, had information and even confirmed the "different" address Sprint had on file for the account. So, if they're legit, how do we get them off our backs if they call again? I guess moral of the story is, run credit reports. And, does anyone know if after someone dies, if banks and credit cards and all these places are notified that person is deceased? If someone tries to use their social after death, does it get blocked? This seems to have happened right around the last few weeks of my dad being alive, so obviously, his social would come up that he was alive if that statistic was kept. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far. Last edited by clockworkgreen; 07-07-2004 at 08:34 PM..

07-07-2004, 08:39 PM	#2 (permalink)
Karby Psycho Location: somewhere	did you go here? also, you might wanna check with the last of the three major credit beureus(sp?) just in case. __________________ ~my karma ran over my dogma.~

07-07-2004, 08:41 PM	#4 (permalink)
clockworkgreen Psycho Location: DC	Had not, but we are following those steps, if I managed to lose them in the mess of that OP. And Equifax said they will notify the 2 other credit bureaus for us if we send them the information.

07-07-2004, 08:50 PM	#6 (permalink)
wonderwench Banned	I have had to deal with this problem. Here is a good resource. http://www.identitytheft.org/ Check out the "What to do first" link.