Dead- But Still Receiving Mail

admiralofthefleet

My grandfather passed away in febuary 2005 but my granny is still receiving mail addressed to him.
its very distressing for her and all of us as we are a close family, i removed his name from the electoral register a couple of months after he died so how can he still be receiving mail. its mostly crap from banks asking him if he would like to sign up for credit cards, loans etc but she received a letter asking him to prove he was alive so he could receive his work pension even though they know he is dead and the pension passed to my granny.

anyone have any idea what i can do?

thanks in advance

Paulw

The electoral register has very little to do with the type of contact that is being sent. Unfortunately, your best way is to write to the offending organisations and inform them.

I know it's not easy, but these institutions have no actual way to know when someone dies, unless they are informed. It's very unfortunate.

faceman

As PaulW said, write of offending companies to inform. If you receive further correspondance, inform your solicitor.

Note that if the bereaved in receiving unsolicited email then thats a different story and potentially in breach of Data protection law.

ircoha

OP: the problem with a lot of bank records is that if there is no date of birth on the file it can be difficult to keep the records up to date in circumstances where you have the same name at the same address: gfather/father/son/gson

u get loads of this in rural ireland so if this is the case with you you will need to get the bank to sort it out.

as outlined earlier write to them and keep a copy.

In terms of the work pension letter, that should be easily sorted.

Finally, some companies buy mailing lists and if you get back to them they will delete the name. they will also tell u where the bought the list

BrianD

in fairness, how would the pension company know he has passed away unless his estate informs them. It would be remiss of the pensions company not to contact him if there was a pension available to him. It seems though it was a careless oversight by the pensions co.

In regard to junk mail, I find that the best method is to scrawl return to sender - not knows at this addresson it . Having moved from one rented accomodation to another, I find that this is one of the most effective ways of stopping post for previous tenants.

admiralofthefleet

i rang and sent a letter to his pension company a week after he died, but the granny got the proof of life letter last friday, thats part of the reason why i put this thread up

dazberry

admiralgar wrote:

its mostly crap from banks asking him if he would like to sign up for credit cards, loans etc

This is a bit gray because an individual can request a bank not to contact them again - in any event you should arrange for your granny to request that these letters are not sent. If these continue make a written complaint to the entities in question (see the "How to make a Complaint" PDF from IFRSA.ie) and if you are not happy with the results (if any) contact the financial services ombudsman.

but she received a letter asking him to prove he was alive so he could receive his work pension even though they know he is dead and the pension passed to my granny.

This could have been a genuine mistake and although distressing these things happen all too often. The easiest thing is probably to ring up and try to speak to someone who can tell you why this happened. If you are unhappy with their answer then follow the complaints procedure.

HTH

D.