A death certificate won’t stop debt collectors

An article at the link below reports on a Minneapolis company called DMC Services - the only national collection agency exclusively focused on deceased collections.

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, calling up the dear departed’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 most important paragraph in the article says:

The people on the other end of the line often have no legal obligation to assume the debt of a spouse, sibling or parent.

The article is a “puff piece” trying to make it sound like the ghoulish practice of trying to collect money from grieving relatives is honorable. It is not.

If there is anything left in an estate, the executor (or personal representative, in some cases) is duty bound to pay legal debts.

If the estate does not have sufficient funds to pay debts left by the decedent, next of kin generally do not have a responsibility to pay any unpaid bills.

Link