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A question about deceased acct. holders...

sic

May 29, 2012, 8:24 AM
If you please, what is Verizon policy on this? While it is on my mind, how can a non-account holder access the account over the phone?

While I do not have Verizon, I do need to do business with them. The basic reason should be obvious.
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Mikey C

May 29, 2012, 10:12 AM
If I remember correctly, proof of death is needed to cancel the account. Without that there is no way to access the account unless you have the last four of social or password. And unless you are authorized on the account you have to say you are someone that is.

Ive heard that a power of attorney could be used, but I think that only applies to hospitalized/incarcerated customers.
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sic

May 29, 2012, 10:27 AM
According to my mother, a rep allowed her to access her minutes by swapping both lines to a new account without authorization.
If this is true, I would love for somebody to get fired. I know that's not realistic, but authorization misuse along with leeching off of a widow is disgusting.
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epik

May 29, 2012, 10:45 AM
Just so I understand your meaning, what part of them allowing her to assume liability (the term they use) of the lines without the permission of the deceased (which is obviously not possible) warrants the phrases, "authorization misuse" as well as "leeching off a widow?"

Here's the policy in a nutshell:

1) Reasonable discretion is used.

The finer print will say that a death certificate is not necessary, but may be requested. It will also say to offer an assumption of liability before offering account terminations (which makes sense, since others on the account are likely to stay with Verizon and/or want to keep their numbers). Since the billing responsible party (AKA account owner) is no longer living, an already authorized manage...
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sic

May 29, 2012, 1:21 PM
Fraudulent changes of ownership can be created with "reasonable discretion".

In my mother's case, I believe she could verify the account. At least through last 4. She wanted to get her minutes from a person, which she couldn't get without being the account holder.
Now she has an account under her name that she is unsure that she wants, because she was concerned that the various necessary calls went over.
The fact that changing the account over was easier than checking minutes is quite frankly sickening to me.
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vzwinagent

May 29, 2012, 6:19 PM
That should have never been allowed for that purpose. If your mom said the person had died then nothing was done wrong. In that situation Verizon is going to want to move the account out of the dead persons name.

If they simply did this because she couldn't verify the information and moved it to her name to allow her access, that's wrong... unless your mom specifically wanted the lines in which case the person whose name they aren't in now shouldn't really care if your mom took her own line to pay for herself. It still shouldn't be allowed even in this scenario though without permission. Only way would be if the original account holder was dead or they told the rep they were dead.
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sic

May 29, 2012, 9:41 PM
She was concerned about her minutes due to the large amount of calls that you need to make after a death. The rep jumped on a change of ownership as the remedy. My flustered mother agreed; she's not the best at these situations.

What I know is that I will need to fix it. Perhaps there is a good reason for a certain level of bureaucracy is these sorts of situations. It definitely would curtail SNAFUs like this.
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vzwinagent

May 29, 2012, 10:17 PM
Was the phone account in the name of the person that died? If so that's why they did that. If not, it sounds like they misunderstood your mom and thought that's what had happened. From what you've said I'm confused myself on who died and would maybe think the person whose name the account was originally in was the one that died. If they were then Verizon of course wants to get the account out of that persons name. Otherwise it was either a misunderstanding or a bad rep.
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sic

May 30, 2012, 12:02 AM
It was my father who died, with both his & my mom's phones on the account. My mother could verify the account, so that isn't the issue.
The misunderstanding occurs when my mom is simply attempting to make sure that the minutes are in the clear, and ends up with an account that she isn't sure she wants.
Today my father has been dead three weeks. My mother is not really in the disposition to decide on whether or not keeping Verizon is viable yet. Fortunately, a friendly representative helped her out with that.
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vzwinagent

May 30, 2012, 1:04 AM
Well that totally makes sense then. I'd say legally Verizon can't keep an account in the name of someone who is no longer alive once they've been told about it. The rep did the right thing getting the account moved over. It may not have been an "appropriate" time in the families eyes and I don't know the official policy on if it had to be done right then, but if it wasn't and then the person calling decided they didn't want to ever get it done it could have gone on forever. So I think the rep was just doing their job.
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epik

May 30, 2012, 9:18 AM
It IS hard to determine what timing is appropriate in cases such as these. The surviving family member who deals with these changes doesn't have a pleasant experience, even in the most ideal situations.

The thing that took me a bit of reading in this thread to understand correctly was the checking of minutes aspect. At first, it wasn't clear to me that the spouse was trying to check her minutes. Sadly, there are a handful of ways of checking minutes that didn't require authorization on the account. Even calling into customer service, selecting the option that tells you about your minutes would read them to you instead of getting to a real person like it used to (which I'm not proud to say in any case). Then there was the online accou...
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bigdaddyjay

Jun 5, 2012, 1:25 PM
If I remember correctly VZW will allow an account to remain active for 8-10 days if the account holder is reported as being deceased. I see nothing wrong here as they allowed her to take ownership of the account which she sounds she was not authorized on. In this case the deceased can't add her to the account and the account can't stay active. If your sister and mother wanted to keep their numbers then the liability change was done in good taste.
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