Capitalism will put the bill on your grave and harass your grieving family until they pay
One of my cousins passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35, and had been paying back a loan from the bank. About two weeks after his death, my great aunt received a statement from the bank (his mail was being delivered to her house) about a late payment. She called the bank and explained the situation and the only thing a manager could say was “Well, that’s unfortunate. We can arrange so payments will resume in 30 days, that should be enough time to have already paid for the other arrangements.”
On top of the unexpected $10,000 funeral, cremation and burial bill, my aunt had to finish paying my uncle’s $5,000 loan. She’s a disabled retiree, on a fixed income, and could barely afford to pay for her insulin for diabetes. She nearly lost her home of more than 40 years. Fuck the system.
She didn’t need to pay. When people die, their debts are not their family’s responsibility.
In fact, it is outright illegal to try and collect those debts from a person who didn’t cosign the loan and isn’t executing the will.
Here’s a link to the detail on that one.
Banks count on people not knowing that last comment so that they can still get money
They really do.
My great-grandmother had her identity stolen before she died at the age of 93, and thousands of charges were racked up on credit cards in her name. After she passed away, they called my mother to try and collect. My mom laughed at them, and told them: “She’s dead, good luck collecting.” The credit card asked my mother, “Don’t you want to clear your grandmother’s debts? Don’t you want to clear her good name?” My mom laughed at them again. “No,” she said. “Because a 90 year old wasn’t watching porn with those credit cards, and her name is fine. Don’t give credit cards to old women likely to pass away soon. This is on you.”
Which is how I learned as a young child to always question collection agents, and to never pay off debts that aren’t your own. They often can’t even collect that money from the estate, if there is one, depending on how you write your will and what kind of account the money was kept in.
DO NOT EVER PAY OFF DEBTS THAT AREN’T YOUR OWN.
If a loved one of yours dies and bill collectors (credit cards, loans, etc etc) start calling you off the hook and request that you pay off their debts, tell them in no uncertain terms to go fuck themselves.
The reason being is that the moment you give them a single penny, that debt is now on YOU because you’ve now agreed to pay it off.
Do not agree to pay off their debt. Do not pass go, do not give them $200.
That happened to my grandma when my grandfather passed away. They had been separated for two years and he had some debt. They called her not even two weeks after the funeral and she told them where he was buried and ended it with “when you get your money bring me back some too.”