Identity Theft: Faking Out The Dead

Identity thieves are increasingly targeting dead people, according to a new warning from the firm ID Analytics.

Personal details of nearly 2.5 million deceased Americans are used every year to illegally apply for credit products and services, ID Analytics calculates in a study released Monday.

According to Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer at the San Diego-based company, the study compared the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers on 100 million applications during the first three months of 2011, with data in the Social Security Administration's Death Master File.

"We found 800,000 cases a year of dead people's identities being used" intentionally, Coggeshall told The Huffington Post.

The study found that on another 1.6 million applications annually, an identity manipulator used the Social Security number of a deceased person inadvertently.

The morbid fraudsters typically find potential targets by perusing obituary notices or graveyards. The identities are targeted for misuse on applications for credit products and cellphone services.

The inadvertent use occurs when "someone is making up identities, dates of birth and Social Security numbers and just happens to use a Social Security number for someone who is dead," Coggeshall said.

The study also revealed several hundred thousand other misuses of dead people's identities are perpetrated each year.

All told, the study found that fraudsters use the identities of the deceased at a rate of more than 2,000 per day.

According to Coggeshall, it is important for people to monitor not only their own identities, but also those of their deceased family members for at least one year after the death.

The following tips are recommended to keep fraudsters from duping the dead:

• Provide only limited personal information in the deceased's obituary, and avoid printing the individual's complete date of birth or address.
• Promptly notify the Social Security Administration of a loved one's death at 800-772-1213.
• Cancel the deceased's driver's license with the state's motor vehicles department.
• Notify all entities with which the deceased had a financial relationship -- including banks, credit card companies and brokerage firms -- about his or her death.
• Notify all three credit reporting bureaus of the death -- Equifax, TransUnion and Experian -- and mail them copies of the death certificate.
• Use an identity theft protection service to help monitor any use of the deceased's identity.

ID Analytics also runs a free service to help determine if an identity is likely to be misused. "People can put in their information in myidscore.com and get a score that tells them how at risk they are," Coggeshall said.

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Comments

[dbrett480]

01:17 PM on 05/08/2012

How else do people think big businesses are able to add illegal immigrants onto the payroll?

[lofttypeofaview]

09:24 AM on 04/24/2012

It is very important to monitor your deceased relatives information because if you and/or your children are reviving survivors benefits, they will be cut immediately upon the Social Security Administration's belief that the supposedly deceased individual is still alive and an investigation could take months/years to determine that your relative is actually deceased.

[psandysdad]

09:09 AM on 04/24/2012

The short list sounds like a lot of work I would rather not do, to notify everyone relevant that someone died. Especially since I'm not personally liable for such fraud. (Of course I realize it ultimately drives prices up.)

One would think our government, with its penchant for ever enlarging the rule book and its love of incomprehensible forms, would step up and put out a 'death package' you can pick up at the local P.O., library, or other such gov entity.

Or go online to a special website, say 'dead and bloated.com', fill in the appropriate info, snail mail them a valid death cert, and then their server proceeds to notify all computers with your dearly departed's name inside.

[rg9rts]

04:03 AM on 04/24/2012

I guess that ther is no RIP for some. However the institutions that give out the credit so freely have a degree of responsibility in this abuse. There are some things to be said for a cash society.

[mipenniesworth]

03:21 AM on 04/24/2012

i have to disagree with lieshealy, if the files where closed as they are when you are alive, there would be less identity fraud. i am sorry it is because of your profession but people who steal identities do it as professionals also. social security should do all it can to protect numbers of people alive or dead.

[AtticusinPa]

07:02 AM on 04/24/2012

Actually, I think that's why the publish the death index. To allow creditors, landlords, police etc. to know that your loved one has died and to prevent this type of fraud.

A print version of this article suggested that they did not actually examine how often the attempt was successful, only how often a credit app had been filed for someone who was on the SS master death index. In other words, they simply ran credit apps by SS number v. the death index. I suspect few of those apps got anywhere. They also suggested that amateur thieves have now discovered the death index, and mistakenly think its a treasure trove. In fact, if a credit issuer looks, that should end the id theft, because its easy to verify.

[liesahealy]

12:11 AM on 04/24/2012

Thanks, David Lohr, for getting the story RIGHT about identity fraud! So many in the media have gotten it wrong. Readers may be interested in knowing that there is a move afoot to CLOSE off public access to the Death Master File.

As a professional genealogist, I and many of my colleagues oppose this move. It is important to keep the DMF open and accessible. That way, anyone can quickly verify that a certain SS number does belong to a deceased person, and should not be in use by anyone else.

One thought I would add - studies have shown that the vast majority of ID fraud is committed by someone the victim knows. While people may scan obits and graveyards for info, those cases are not common. Thank you.

[rewith85man]

11:59 PM on 04/23/2012

The question I have is:

Who or how do these frauds get personal/private information from the deceased?

[Rod-iron-girl]

10:45 AM on 04/24/2012

Oddly enough... I was on a site looking for exact information on the death of a family member. I couldn't remember the exact date of her death. When the information pulled up, her social security number was also listed on the information.

[just a voice here]

10:02 PM on 04/23/2012

It is hard to understand how a cemetery raised its burial cost and blamed it on the cost of living.

[TheyCallMeLtKelso]

09:41 PM on 04/23/2012

Check out Patty Hearst and see how she was able to be on the lam for a long time under an assumed name.

[NC Democrat 12]

09:30 PM on 04/23/2012

The living have been abusing the dead since the dawn of time. This isn't surprising and it'll only get worse because somebody somewhere will always find a way to make money from the deceased.

[pam0528]

09:04 PM on 04/23/2012

You people kill me always making something political. This is talking about Identity Theft, not politics.

[BeatlesPrudence]

12:06 AM on 04/24/2012

Voting under someone elses name IS ID stealing! Doesn't matter if its for a CC, insurance, money, credit or voting fraud.... it's still ID theft! This article is enough for me to favor ID presentation to vote. If you're going to use the tired old line that the poor don't have ID's, I'd say that mostly BS. How many of them drive caddies, bmw's, ect,,,! It doesn't cost much to get a state ID if you do not drive either. If states allow junk food to be purchased with EBT food cards, then allow state IDs to be allowed to be purchased with them also! No excuse for everyone to have an ID.

[Debbie Zimmerman]

09:14 PM on 04/23/2012

Before I even finished reading the article, I wondered how long it would take before someone blamed this one on President Obama. Congratulations on being the first poster, and the first one to fallaciously link this against our President.
Obama 2012!!

[hyaofcr]

11:19 PM on 04/23/2012

Off topic, but I'm curious if you've had to take any cr*p because of your last name?

[randinoel]

07:45 PM on 04/23/2012

This is interesting and I appreciated the information. This happens accidentally and on purpose, and I love that an article such as this one was published to keep ppl aware that Identity theft occurs.

[pam0528]

08:27 PM on 04/23/2012

F&F randinoel, I agree. I really wasn't thinking about this but my mom and dad have passed away, and I've never even really thought about someone using their information fraudlently. I think I'm just gong to check to see if their information is still okay. They are doing this to 2,000 people a day? Unbelievable.

[hyaofcr]

11:23 PM on 04/23/2012

A friend works for the IRS and she says her desk is stacked high with cases of ID fraud from people using SS #'s from the deceased.