Scammers have no sympathy for anyone as evidenced by the many scams that are based on obituaries.  For years, scammers would scan the obituaries and then go to Social Security’s Death Master File where the names of deceased Americans are available along with their Social Security numbers and then use this information to the deceased a victim of identity theft by obtaining credit, filing phony income tax returns or other tactics.  Easy access by scammers to the Death Master File has been largely closed by legislation.

Scammers also will look for information in obituaries about the names of family members and then use that information for purposes of the infamous Grandparent Scam where the grandparent gets a telephone call late at night from a scammer posing as the grandchild who under the guise of some emergency tricks the grandparent into sending money to the scammer.

Recently we have started seeing scammers utilizing AI to harvest obituaries for likely targets and then further use AI to gather even more detailed information about their targeted victims from social media and other sources to enable the scammers to create believable scams that appear to be legitimate claims such as posing as creditors of the decedent or government officials seeking payments for a debt.

TIPS

Scammers prey on people at their most vulnerable so it is at times like the death of a family member that you must be your most vigilant.  When writing an obituary, don’t put in specific information such as names that can be used by a scammer.  Also, contact the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian to seal the credit report of the deceased in order to avoid the risk of identity theft.  If someone contacts you claiming a debt was owed by the deceased, demand written confirmation for you to review before paying any alleged debts.  Don’t be pressured to act quickly by a purported debt collector.

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