New income source discovered – collecting payments from kins of dead people…

You could trust the nations ailing financial system to figure out new and innovative ways to make money – here is one. Calling up a dead person’s relatives and using emotional arguments, ask them to them to honor unpaid bills of their dead relatives (even when they have no legal obligation to honor the debt).

From the NY Times digest today: Dozens of agents at DCM Services here call up the dear departed’s next of kin and kindly ask 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 people on the other end of the line often have no legal obligation to assume the debt. But they take responsibility for it anyway. “I am out of work now, to be honest with you, and money is very tight for us,” one man said after he was told of his late mother-in-law’s $280 credit card bill. He promised to pay $15 a month.
Collecting from the dead, however, is expanding. Improved database technology is making it easier to discover when estates are opened in the country’s 3,000 probate courts, giving collectors an opportunity to file timely claims. Survivors generally are not required to pay a dead relative’s bills from their own assets. In theory, however, collection agencies could go after any property inherited from the deceased.