What about debts after death? Can deceased people's identities be stolen?

Do you need to “worry” about your debt after you pass away?  Well, you can’t do anything about it.
     

Here’s an AOL article on the issue. 

Apparently your unsecured debt disappears with you.

But in most cases, the money can be tied to an estate that has to be paid off.  When my Mother passed, I immediately paid the remaining caregiving bills.  I canceled her social security, and one payment was taken back.  I had a credit card in her name.  I paid the bills on it, and kept using it for house (trust expenses) until the bank called and said it had to cancel the card.  I did pay the final bill ($900).  I had thought I could use it until distribution (there was no probate since there was a trust).  

 The bank feared I could simply not pay, I suppose, but I did pay it off in full.

Sometimes some of my mother’s accounts have shown up on my own credit report, which is incorrect.  I’m planning to pull detailed reports on myself soon because of the possibility, at least, of relocation.

But I wonder what could happen if a criminal “reincarnated her identity” to create a fictitious person for identity theft.  Not too easy with an unusual last name, and I would think lenders could check to make sure she wasn’t deceased. 

Are some people less vulnerable to identity theft than others?

Are some people less vulnerable to identity theft than others?

Probably so.  It helps to have an unusual or hard-to-spell foreign last name, and less common first name.  It probably helps to be older and have a longer credit history.



It may, ironically, help to have a robust personal social media presence, one which might be more likely stand out with employers.

And it might help to be famous.  Public figures are more vulnerable to invasion of privacy and defamation attempts, but less so to identity theft.

Many homeowner’s policies are adding identity theft endorsements to their policies in many states.

Accounts in collections, and your credit score

Credit Karma has some good advice on how having an account in collection can affect your credit score, link here.

It’s possible for this to happen with identity theft, if you never got the bills and if the creditors completely dropped the ball in giving the imposter credit. (It might be relatively easy to track down and prosecute the imposter unless it is overseas and you have a very careless or reckless lender.)  It might happen by being mixed up with relatives.

If your credit score was high, than a previously unknown collection account could impact your score more.  Paying the debt does not immediately improve your score.

I had an issue in 2000 with two bad debts I did not know existed.  One was about a Discover card renewal that dropped, and I just paid the one time renewal to erase it. The other was a Visa debt for a stereo purchase in Texas that seemed to get lost and wound up with National Credit Systems, which was quite aggressive over the phone.  I didn’t learn how the ropes work until I worked for RMA in Minneapolis as a debt collector myself for a while in 2003.  The Visa claim probably should have been disputed, and I may have paid $600 I didn’t owe.  I did the credit check myself when I was considering buying a home, which I didn’t do there.  Not all three agencies had both debts.  Equifax may be the most likely to have them.

IRS now uses debt collection companies for large long-overdue tax bills

Private debt collection of some large overdue tax bills will start in April 2017, according to the IRS’s own announcement.

This could compromise advise to consumers not to answer phone calls claiming to come from the IRS, as they have always been scams.



However, the IRS will not call without having contacted the taxpayer by mail first.

Physical security matters for identity protection; a note about messaging encryption

WJLA7 Saturday night offered a list of seven things people should never carry in their wallets if they want to protect themselves from identity theft.

The most important tip is not to carry a social security card.  However, seniors, when they travel, may need to carry Medicare identifying information which includes SSN.  Typically I carry this identification on paper in a carryon bag, but it is conceivable that it can get lost.

Another item is passport, unless you are traveling internationally or have an unusual reason for a second id.

Another tip is to be careful about carrying printed lists (or thumb drives) with passwords.  I had an incident recently where I carried such a cheatsheet to Best Buy to work on a problem with a laptop.  There’s a lot of stuff to carry around and remember to take with you.  I caught my error and had to make a quick return visit.  The paperwork was still there in a cubicle, undisturbed.  You pay for your own mistakes (at least the extra gas to drive back).  The call that personal responsibility.

Another tip is to carry only one or two credit cards when out and about.  I had all of them when mugged at a Metro stop in March 2013.  It took about three or four days to replace them (including Virginia DL).  My loss was zero.  However, the criminal attempted a scam with fake Smart cards, costing Metro thousands.  I believe the person was prosecuted for a different crime later.

I would think states would change DL numbers after robberies, as they are often used as supplementary ID.

When wearing pants, people should carry wallets in front pockets if possible.  But of course that crowds pockets and can cause car or house keys to fall out (which happened to me with a rental car in France in 1999).
   
I want to pass along an op-ed by Max Read in the Review section of the New York Times today, “Trump is president, encrypt your email”.  Actually, he’s talking mostly about chat applications and discusses Signal and GroupMe.  I don’t do much chat for social reasons.  But his comment about “herd immunity” is well made.  

I get duplicated with a fake profile on Facebook -- why?

Yesterday I got a post on my Facebook timeline warning me that my Facebook account might have been “hacked” because she got a duplicate friend request.  I didn’t think much of it, as I’ve gotten spam emails with headers spoofed to look like they are from Facebook friends.

Then, while I was out, another friend got one, and she reported it to Facebook.  When I got back on, I checked and found that the fake profile had already been removed.   I never saw it, but the friend told me it had no postings but had already attracted five “friends”.



I don’t see much point in setting up a fake profile imitating someone, but here is a cautionary tale on Forbes. from back in 2009, by someone in the BioTech industry.  Here’s a more recent tall tale from Baltimore.

The Huffington Post (2015) says that the motive could be “Likenomics”  -- teenagers overseas are hired to create them to increase hits and get revenue for less reputable interests (porn) and aren’t very savvy in who would make a credible person to mimic.

Here’s another site that lists up to ten reasons, link here.  Two of the more disturbing reasons could be revenge or trolling, or extreme political activism.  This doesn’t sound very credible with someone like me:  I hardly make a target for revenge porn.

But it might be possible to set up a fake profile to try to make someone guilty of sex trafficking or of making terror threats.  Again, that might be possible with a router.

That a fake Facebook profile would be part of a major scheme of identity theft sounds unlikely, although make some more unusual crimes (like house title theft) could be envisioned.

Let me mention I've seen fake Twitter accounts (like one imitating popular actor Richard Harmon).  I use Instagram very little, but when I created it I had to have a fake account set up in my name (with no images -- which could be dangerous) removed.  I don't have Snapchat (because I don't have much use for the concept right now), but I have no way of knowing if someone else could imitate me on it. Then one day the police knock.

Picture: no connection to the hack, from political demonstrations on "the Day Without a Woman".

House stealing is a relatively under-reported consequence of identity theft, and has happened to owner-occupied homes

An email from Quora (a site you can join and supply answers to questions and get followers) discusses the grim possibility of house stealing as a result of identity theft, major link here.

And the FBI has a little known link on the problem here.
 
The problem is more likely to occur with a vacant house, or even a rented one; but titles have been stolen even from owner-occupied homes.  It’s a good idea to check your local government’s land title records (which will show assessed valuation and property tax payments due sometimes) online periodically, even once a month if possible.