According to Sainsbury's bank I have died twice

London7766551

One wonders how these large companies generate this data. I once received a letter from the DVLA that my car had been registered to my name and address (or something like that). Problem was I was only 13 at the time.

Another time I received a letter informing me my landlord wanted me out, the address had a totally different address and only my initial and last name (X.XXXXX) were the same as the recipient. It came to me at a totally different address. Work that one out!

Petriix

Have you moved house at some point and failed to inform some organisation or other?
In a previous property we continued to receive post addressed to the previous occupier. After countless letters scrawled 'not known at this address' had no effect, I started writing 'deceased' instead. They soon stopped sending them. I do wonder what impact it might have had on their credit file.

Yeophil

jonesMUFCforever said:

ratechaser said:

jonesMUFCforever said:

I will respond once the OP has a few more posts under his belt.

Are you concerned that the OP may die for a third time?

No just a possible timewaster - still one post to his name.

Just started hence 1 post MUFC forever

Yeophil

cymruchris said:

Do you have life insurance? You can claim twice if that's the case!

Which three companies have you checked with?

The ones stated on this site under credit report

Sandtree

London7766551 said:

One wonders how these large companies generate this data. 

Do you know how many Jonathan Smith were born on 12/04/1956?
How many does that increase to if you include Jon and John Smith?
How about J Smith?
How about J Smith that were born in April 1956?
How about J Smith that are 64?

The ultimate source of data who has died is the GRO but they only provide you with the name, date of death, age at death (in whole years), place of death and occupation.  People however are inconsistent with the use of their names, I rarely use my middle name and on all but the most official records I use a diminutive version of my first name.

You end up with a lot of fuzzy logic going on to decide if the 64 year old Jonathan Smith that died last month happens to be the same Jon Smith with a dob of 12/04/1956 that you have as an annuity customer or not. If you think it is you write to them, probably suspend their accounts (often a better way to get a quick response from someone) and wait. After a period of time of non-response you tend to assume it was the same person and process it as a death. Others may have been more on the fence as to if it was their Jon Smith or not but once they see others starting to report his passing it adds to the probability it was.

Added to that, some companies have really poor fuzzy logic!

Uxb1

whitesmith said:

you lucky lucky person - each time you die you can write off the outstanding balance ....

Well well that is all news to me!
So do you mean that each time I was the executor of a deceased person I could have got the credit card companies to write off all the outstanding balances on their cards rather than the estate having to pay them as indeed the estates had to pay all the outstanding debts due at death: credit cards included.
Or maybe not....

Sandtree

Uxb1 said:

Or maybe not....

As is very common on this forum and particularly this section, it was clearly an oversimplification... the estate does have to pay the debts if it can but if it cannot then the remaining debts die with the person (for unsecured, no guarantor, single debtor agreements etc)