Description

Letter received, ostensibly from US Bank, addressed to a recently deceased woman who worked at the company I work at. The letter stated that they were unable to establish an account because they were unable to verify identification information on the application. The letter said to call the number listed with any questions. The letter was signed as being from the Customer Authentication Department. The toll free number was (866) 268-7231. I called the number. The answering system sounded legit. Had the option of choosing between authentication for loans, deposit accounts, or other. Chose deposit accounts. Waited about 3 or 4 minutes on hold with music. Man answered and gave a first name I don't remember. I explained the letter that was received. He asked for and I gave him the reference number on the letter. He pulled up the record. He said they had not established an account because they were unable to verify identification information on the application. I told him that it was definitely fraudulent because the person to whom it was addressed was deceased. He said he would record it as such. He didn't ask for any additional information. He did say that I should get in touch with one of the credit agencies and inform them that the person was deceased, so that they would flag the name as such, which would effectively prevent anyone from giving credit to someone using that identity. It all seemed legit and helpful. But then he got very chatty about fraud and how much he hated it. That made me a bit suspicious. After I got off, I checked online and found a couple of references to this phone number and address being associated with a scam. I'm not sure if it was a scam or not. They do have the information that the person is deceased, which might give them a reason to try to use her identity. But, why suggest that I contact the credit agencies as a way to prevent theft of her identity?