Are people really scanning obituaries and committing identity theft?

[Anonymous]

Writing my deceased relative’s obituary and I was told to be careful with sharing too many details that could cause relatives to experience identity theft.

How would this actually cause identity theft?

I’ve always seen the decedents family state/town is listed and their names. Ex: A sister Marion Jones (Barry), of Great Falls, Idaho.

Is this a valid/real concern or fear mongering?

[Anonymous]

All kinds of scams out there, and this is one.

[Anonymous]

Because now a scammer knows Marion Jones’s maiden name after her mom died and it’s listed as nee Williams, or whatever. It makes their job 1000% easier.

[Anonymous]

Don’t put in the date of birth.

[Anonymous]

Sure, why not.

[Anonymous]

Sure, it's probably an old scam. People used to look in cemeteries for tge gravestones of children who died in infancy to use the name and birthrate for a false identity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because now a scammer knows Marion Jones’s maiden name after her mom died and it’s listed as nee Williams, or whatever. It makes their job 1000% easier.

This!

Barbara Jones nee Williams was born on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, PA and died March 13, 2020, in Wuhan, China.

Now it’s super easy to scam Marion Jones. You know her mother’s maidan name, where she was born, and when.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because now a scammer knows Marion Jones’s maiden name after her mom died and it’s listed as nee Williams, or whatever. It makes their job 1000% easier.

This!

Barbara Jones nee Williams was born on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, PA and died March 13, 2020, in Wuhan, China.

Now it’s super easy to scam Marion Jones. You know her mother’s maidan name, where she was born, and when.

Barbara lived an extraordinarily long life

[Anonymous]

Do you know after my Mother's death we ran an ad in the Washington Post about her life history with her picture. We ended up with letters at her home with people saying sorry for your loss and that they knew our mother and she said they are mentioned in her will.

[Anonymous]

The ones that had a phone number we called and said they were mentioned in the will but no money was left for them.

[Anonymous]

They prey on senior people that are alive. Someone called my Father and said he owes money for fixing his computer. They kept calling and leaving messages. Then one message they left said they were going to come to his home and beat the money out of him. My Father finally called them back and said who do I make the check out to and what's the mailing address. My father said no one worked on his computer. He took down the information and took it to Montgomery County Police. They arrested the man. It turns out the guy lived within a mile of my Father's retirement community. This guy was preying on the seniors.

[Anonymous]

Wait till you get listed as the representative of an estate, and you get calls, texts, emails, etc. wanting to buy the deceased persons property. It is a sick process.

[Anonymous]

Don't give the maiden name. There's a case in the news now where a guy hacked into a lot of female athletes' social media accounts and stole their pics. The news articles stated that he collected maiden name info to do this in addition to other findable/guessable info.

[Anonymous]

One scam they do with information from obituaries:
When the obituaries list the grandchildren and their names, the scammers will look up the grandchildren's social media accounts to see which ones are in college or around that age. The scammer then calls the surviving spouse and pretends to be the grandchild. They tell "grandma" or "grandpa" that they were on a trip with friends but got arrested. They beg their "grandparent" not to tell mom and dad, but they need money for bail.
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/scam-alert/grandparent-scams-get-more-sophisticated

[Anonymous]

Yes, this happens frequently