Weird news tonight. I was talking with my girlfriend this evening while I drove home from work. She told me that she had been on the phone with a banker discussing a possible reverse mortgage on her house. The banker told her that after running a credit check, at least two credit reporting agencies have her listed as “deceased.” :eek:
Hmm. Someone should fix that :eek: smilie. But I digress.
Obviously, we can’t do any real investigating until Monday, like finding out how long ago her demise was reported, but we’ve got a pretty good idea who reported it: her evil former stepdaughter (trust me, it’s on-brand for her).
What I’m wondering is: what’s the game here? Did evil stepdaughter already steal her identity some time in the past, run up debts under my gf’s name, then report her death to make the debts go away? Is this something more recent that might turn into a ploy to steal her house out from under her?
C’mon, Dopers, help me out. Put your twisted, devious minds to work and help me make SOME sense of this.
I guess it could be a method to try transfer assets from one person to another, maybe open an account under the name of someone with good credit history and hope to transfer it all to the fraudster.
My first thought is, did your girlfriend initiate the call with that banker, or did the banker call her? If the latter, I’d be suspicious of the caller before I suspected evil stepdaughters.
I’m surprised that any agency would accept a death report without a death certificate. Anyway, has she checked her credit report herself? You don’t need to wait until Monday to do that.
I may have probably used the wrong term when I wrote “banker.” AIUI, she was speaking to a representative of a company that sets up and executes reverse mortgages. She owns the house free and clear, having had it bequeathed to her when a friend of hers (since childhood) passed away several years ago.
But I’ll ask her about the possibility of requesting a credit check during the weekend, to speed up the investigation.
Still not clear if she called this salesperson, or if they cold-called her. Which is it?
Also, IMHO, reverse mortgages are always a bad deal (for the homeowner, though good for the bank and the swarms of parasites (mortgage companies, title companies, real estate lawyers, etc., who swim about them.)
She initiated the call. As to the wisdom of getting into a reverse mortgage, I’m inclined to agree with you, on the whole. But I don’t have much knowledge about the subject (which might disqualify me from having an opinion. But I’d prefer this thread stick to the subject of my gf’s potential zombie-hood).