My Dad died 3 years ago. He had a PayPal account. My Mum actually managed to retain the same AOL email account previously held by my father, but the downside of this was 6 months of saying to people 'Sorry, my husband has passed away, can you stop sending emails addressed to him'. However, the one company who never listened was... TADA! My old pals, PayPal. Over Christmas I went to see my Mum in order to sort her PC out. As it turned out I was around when PayPal sent another little reminder to my very deceased father about something relating to PayPal and my Mum commented 'Please, can you do something about that'. So, today I called them up. The customer service options didn't have 'You have a dead relative with a PayPal account', so I just went through the options until I spoke to a human being. They were very polite, very understanding and conveyed their condolences etc. They also stated they'd send an email with instructions on how to get any remaining balance from the account and transfer it to my Mum's account. However, I received a list of hoops that needed to be jumped through, which funnily enough had the following section on how to obtain the remaining balance. Here are some options for receiving the funds: * A check payable to the deceased and mailed to the primary mailing address registered to the PayPal account. * A check payable to the deceased and mailed to the mailing address for the representative of the estate. * An electronic transfer to the bank account linked to the deceased’s PayPal account. Wow there horsey! This cheque is going to be hard for my father to cash, considering he passed away 3 years ago and correct me if I am not mistaken, but his bank account will have been long since closed. Right, I get where they are coming from, but that ain't gonna help anyone! Hate to make light of my father's demise, but sometimes a bit of black humor is called for. My guess is that it should be written out to the executor of my late father's estate.
parris, My guess is that it should be written out to the executor of my late father's estate. True so true!:banghead:
You said your Mom kept his old email account? Why not just use the forgotten password feature? They should send the password right to his old email and then you can transfer it wherever you want and then close out the account. https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/w...7997fb958b893b526321e081f75fac08e134b48a475a4
If your able to I would try to log into his old account and just transfer the funds Over to a another paypal account. You would think they could fix this some other way tho.
The executor has the power to act on behalf of the deceased (including endorsing checks written to the deceased). This way helps to prevent people from claiming that someone is dead and requesting a check in a different name.
Anything relating and addressed to your late father's estate is handled by whoever is appointed executor in his will etc. Depending on his will and the recipient of the "bulk" or any other cash/monetary arrangements, I guess the beneficiary of the money is either your mother, yourself or one of your siblings. It's a pain in the ass to jump through the hoops but that's English common law (no idea about Scottish law though, so correct me if you have to!)
It seems a crazy situation, and indeed were it a more recent bereavement it could cause a lot of distress and anguish to be told this. However, as mentioned it is standard to have all matters dealt with by the executor. If the worst comes to the worst.....
Presumably your mother has power of attorney over your late (my condolences) father's accounts, so she can cash it on his behalf. That is why they do it that way. It is common practice actually, for this kind of situation. We had to do that several times in the past when I worked in finance and it was a legal obligation, if I recall correctly.
Thanks folks! I guess it's just the wording. My immediate reaction on reading the email was actually laughter. It was a bit Monty Python, purely in terms of language. "Good morning Sir, yes, I can cash your cheque.... oh, dear Sir it states quite categorically that you have to be deceased Sir.... I've not got time to wait for that now Sir, would you like to come back when you are dead?" I might looking into taking the account over, but wonder whether that now I have warned them whether it would be impossible to do so!
Funny you should mention Monty Python... I was just thinking about this: Must be a PayPal rep ;-) "Here's yer ninepence!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
