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Really - forever mail?


tybec
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I called about a retirement plan I still get info. about from my DH. It has been 6 1/2 yrs.  I called to see if there was something I missed, something still left in the plan as it was his company 401K and investments.  The lady stated that the company would continue to send them out.  I said he has been dead 6 1/2 yrs.  She apologized. I said it was a waste of time and money.  She apologized. I told her the company does not even have the contract where he worked now, and I received the pay outs in 2012.  She acknowledged it again and apologized. WHY? Why would they keep doing this?  She did not know why, agreed it was a waste of time and money, but it was an automatic mail out since DH was  employed by them.  REALLY?  She said she was sorry. Poor woman. How many calls does she get like this?  Just wow.

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I was just complaining about something similar. All the correspondence from my house/auto insurance comes addressed to

 

Sandy Lastname and estate of Michael Lastname.

 

 

So they are acknowledging he is dead but what?? they like to remind me???

 

Frustrating!!!

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Insurance and investment firms (most firms, actually) don't mind spending loads of money to entice you to buy their product. Nice looking actors, top of the line production qualities, etc. Advertisements in all the "right" magazines and online outlets, "All of our customers are like family", yada, yada, yada. But, on the back side, they do not like to spend much to remove anyone from the list of active customers and other, back of the house operations.

 

That's also why, many times, it will take forever to get a payout from them, even though you have supplied all the requested forms, documents and certificates that they have asked for. More often than you'd like to believe, the business functions that pay out to customers have not yet been digitized as the rest of the firm has been. That costs big money and they'd rather apply it to the advertisement end of the business.

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I get these too! Its so weird, and I have called too. There isn't even any money left in his account, it was closed and paid out a long time ago, and I have moved. No matter, I still get this mail. I also get Kohl's mailers, I can't get them to stop. I get one of those Kohl's percent off stickers and so does he. Two separate mailings to the same address, one to a deceased person, its silly. I just use whichever coupon has the better percent off. 

 

It's been more than 7 years. 

 

Yes, frustrating.

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On 7/5/2018 at 3:39 AM, klim said:

I was just complaining about something similar. All the correspondence from my house/auto insurance comes addressed to

 

Sandy Lastname and estate of Michael Lastname.

 

 

So they are acknowledging he is dead but what?? they like to remind me???

 

Frustrating!!!

Yes! My insurance company here in NZ does exactly the same - seven years too...What is it with them? They are the only ones who do it. And it's not the  'estate' that is paying the premiums, it's 100% me, for goodness' sake. It also took them years and two requests to remove the written-off  bike he was killed on from the bloody policy...

On another note though, I still get a mailer addressed to him every few months that I have not contacted, as it is the only other thing that still turns up with his name on it, and not 'estate' obviously. We all know how evidence of their existence seems to slowly be erased, so I am still happy to get these, though I never open them.  Strange how we go  (or at least I  went) from being stabbed in the heart each time it happens, to glad for it.

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  • 3 months later...

My wife, Catherine, died in 2014. She still gets mail, though it's mostly catalogs. Today was different.

 

The mailbox had a large envelope addressed to Catherine with the title "2018 GLOBAL HEALTH SURVEY". Further down the envelope were remarks addressed to her:

 

    Catherine Lastname -

    You are part of a specially selected sample group to participate in the 2018 Global Health Survey.

    In appreciation for representing Massachusetts, a personalized thank you gift is enclosed.

 

The "personalized gift" was a set of return address labels containing Catherine's name, our home address and some very nice photographs of mountain and desert vistas. I know Catherine would have enjoyed these and used them.

 

I opened the envelope and took out the survey form. Attached to it was a sticky note with a message printed in a faux-handwritten font:

 

    Ms. Lastname -

    Your opinions are important in the fight to eliminate the injustice of poverty and hunger throughout the world....

 

The survey contained a couple of questions about age, race and education, and then contained questions like these:

 

    Do you agree that society must break the cycle of poverty and disease?

 

It was clear that this "survey" wasn't really designed to collect information. It was designed to stir emotions and collect money. Question 13 asked whether she would make a donation to ensure people had access to health care. But who was requesting this donation?

 

It was Partners in Health, a non-profit health care organization in Boston affiliated with Harvard University. As it turns out, they're not the same as Partners Healthcare, another Massachusetts firm affiliated with Harvard which is the parent company of the hospital where Catherine was treated - and the same hospital where she died.

The Wikipedia pages for both of these firms state that they're not to be confused with each other, which means I'm not the only person who did. Is it really such a red-herring that I took offense to this so-called survey seeking a donation from my deceased wife?

 

Partners in Health most likely acquired Catherine's name from Partners HealthCare. Given that close affiliation, it would be best if they put the same effort into removing deceased patients from their mailing lists.

 

|+|  M a r k  |+|

 

Edited by Guaruj
Didn't complete it on first attempt.
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Hi, Mark,

 

Long time no see.

 

I still get mail addressed to my second husband.  He also died in 2014.  I have a credit card that was once jointly owned with my first husband.  I don't know how many times I have let them know that the account should not contain his name...yet today, I get an email for him on his birthday month...on MY email account.  UGH.  He has been gone 9 years.

 

I hope you make the next bago...we can lament this together.

 

Maureen

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  • 2 weeks later...

For those of you wanting these mailers to stop, if and when you call these companies just kindly remind them of the legal recourse you  have in today's world with the

security breech and identity theft problems that are existing. Let them know that they are adding to it by having been informed that your loved one is deceased and you have

kindly asked for them to be removed from all mailers and mailing list asap.

This should work, because if you  tried to get any kind of joint credit involving them that would put YOU in legal hot water! So why or where in the world 

would it ever be ok for these people to be using your loved ones name or information after notification in any way shape or form? It's NOT!

Once I stated this fact to a few places all mailers stopped, and all information about my husband was flagged and no longer able to be used!

Also inform credit reporting agencies as well.

Just saying, you have rights to protect your loved ones information . It's sad that we live in a world where there are people who will if given the chance use that information the 

wrong way!

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  • 2 months later...

I used to get these from the health insurance company, the same one that paid the medical expenses at the hospital where he was admitted with a "total code." It took several phone calls over five or six years, but I finally got connected to someone who was able to stop them.

The kicker: Late Husband was a two-pack-a-day smoker who died from lung cancer.  It took only one email to Marlborough to get them to stop sending offers to redeem his Marlborough miles.  I've never figured out how their system was somehow better set up than Anthem's.

 

I did get an offer, some years after his death, from Mutual of Omaha for cancer insurance. I wrote across the form and told them the offer had come about five years too late, and that we could all appreciate the irony.  I used a Sharpie, as I thought it would show well if someone ran it through the scanner at the office for wider distribution around the company.

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