Imagine this situation.

YouÂ’ve lost a family member. The deceased had little or noting in the way of assets at the time of his/her death, perhaps due to the final illness.

And then the phone calls come – debt collectors. Only, you didn’t contract the debt; the deceased did. The begin making requests that you pay the debt. But what they don’t tell you is this – you are not responsible for paying one penny of the debt in question.

Sound outrageous? It isn’t – and has become a common business practice.

The banks need another bailout and countless homeowners cannot handle their mortgage payments, but one group is paying its bills: the dead.

Dozens of specially trained agents work on the third floor of DCM Services here, calling up the dear departedÂ’s next of kin and kindly asking if they want to settle the balance on a credit card or bank loan, or perhaps make that final utility bill or cellphone payment.

The people on the other end of the line often have no legal obligation to assume the debt of a spouse, sibling or parent. But they take responsibility for it anyway.

These folks know you donÂ’t owe them anything, and that the debt became legally uncollectible when the debtor took that last breath. But they are banking on the probability that you donÂ’t know that.

Scott Weltman of Weltman, Weinberg & Reis, a Cleveland law firm that performs deceased collections, says that if family members ask, “we definitely tell them” they have no legal obligation to pay. “But is it disclosed upfront — ‘Mr. Smith, you definitely don’t owe the money’? It’s not that blunt.”

“Not that blunt”? Let’s try “not that honest”. What these folks are about is extracting payments from bereaved individuals who are not responsible for another’s debts – even if the payment of the debt is going to create a hardship.

And what is more disgusting is that these folks claim they are offering a service because they refer folks to grief counselors and have a website that tells folks how to proceed after the death of a loved one.

Am I alone in viewing these folks as exploitive parasites?

And am I alone in believing that this might be an appropriate area for some sort of legislation, either on the state or federal level?

Or is my offense at the ghoulishness of the pseudo-sympathy used to extract money from the family of the dead simply preventing me from seeing the legitimacy of such tactics?

Posted by: Greg at 09:39 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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