Other creditors (besides credit card companies) will try to pull this crap too. When my father died, the ambulance company transposed two digits when they submitted the bill to insurance, so they didn’t get paid. So they sent us a bill and told us it was our obligation to pay them, rather than their obligation to resubmit the claim with the correct number. My sister rather eloquently told them what they could expect from that line of attack.
There’s nothing wrong with the CC company trying to cover its losses through legitimate means, such as by making a claim against the estate. But deliberately lying and telling someone they are required to use an insurance payment to pay off someone else’s debt is morally indefensible.
Sure looks like there’s plenty of “moral indefensibleness” to go around in this thread…
Explain why the credit card company ought to dun a widow, or for that matter anyone else, for an account she had no part in. She didn’t sign for the account; she was not privileged to use it.
Lighten up beowuff; credit card collectors are open game; like blonds, lawyers and used car salesmen for punch line jokes and self rightous indignation. My ex used to be one and she had to get out of it because of the things she was told to do and the way it made her feel when talking to some of these people in bad situations. She also would pissed at the people who where obviously trying to rip off the company. I don’t see how anyone could last in that job more than a year without an incredibly thick hide.
Well, let’s see…
If 100% of those credit card charges were used for the Husband’s benefit, and the wife got no benefit out of them, than you might have a point. But, would you agree that a) Most of those charges where used to benefit both the husband and the wife, and b) even if the wife received no direct benefits from those charges, by deferring payment, it left money available for use by the household? In other words money is fungible.
In many states (mine, for instance) a household is considered to be a single monetary unit - the wife shares in debt, just as she shares in income.
The ethical thing for her to do is provide for her child, not the CC companies. Bad debt is a chance they take every time they extend credit. It’s factored into their ultrahigh interest rates.
I agree wholeheartedly with Skald the Rhymer.
What child?
In Post 8, Surly Chick mentions a six-year-old child.
This argument seems disingenuous. I believe I wrote upthread that, if the law says she is liable for her husband’s credit card debt though she is not on the account, she should pay it. What you seem to be missing is that we distrust the credit card company’s assertion that that is the case, and that we don’t believe the life insurance payout is part of the husband’s estate.
ETA: Incidentally, I don’t think it matters whose benefit the card purchases were for. My son’s sister used to live with me when she was down on her luck, and a lot of my purchases benefitted her. If I had, say, been foolish enough to make grocery & other routine purchases on my Visa and died, do you think Cinderella the Rhymer should have been obliged to repay MY debts?
So if I buy someone a gift with my credit card, said gift being something she would have bought herself, and then I die, the giftee is responsible to the credit car company in the amount of the cost of the gift? Interesting.
OK, look:
When Bernie Madoff fleeced all his investors, buying houses, yachts and art with the proceeds, should his wife get to keep these when he’s sent to jail?
What make it any different if I do the same thing by charging it all and then refusing to pay my credit card bill?
That’s changing the scenario beyond useful comparison. The man in the OP wasn’t scamming anyone. And he, you know, died. Remember? it’s pretty much the central fact in the case.
I suppose if you died and I called looking for you that would be you refusing to take my call?
He died, but his estate didn’t.
The estate should make an effort to pay his debts.
Now you’ve changed it again. First you said the wife was responsible, which began this back and forth, now you say the estate is. It’s getting hard to take you seriously when you wriggle about like that.
The sentence I bolded is the heart of the issue. A life insurance payout is not necessarily part of a person’s estate. If the person has named a beneficiary, then the payout belongs to the beneficiary, not the estate.
The only cite I can find right now is from the Wikipedia article on life insurance. I’ll try to find a better one later. But my point is that estate is not equivalent to survivors.
His wife is a beneficiary of his estate. As such, his estate should be required to discharge its debts before she gets any benefits.
Regardless, she is still morally obligated to cover a percentage of the debts that her husband incurred when they were married, since any income he made would have been considered partially hers.
It’s truly astounding how many people think that dodging debt this way is OK. If the husband borrowed money from a relative, would the wife try to welsh on that debt too?
That’s fine.
From a legal standpoint, the CC company may not be able to pursue collection of the debt, however from a moral standpoint, I think the wife should make an effort to cover it.
Has anyone here argued that it shouldn’t? But that is not at all what you said before. I’ll quote the whole post for you.
Can you point out where you referred to the estate?
You can say that all you want. Absent a supporting argument, it carries little weight.
It’s not her debt! She can’t welsh on a debt that she was not a party to. If I borrow money to buy a car, and then die before it is paid off, do you seriously think that anyone I gave a ride to is obligated to help pay off the loan? If not, why not? They certainly benefited from the debt I incurred.