Did you know 10,000 people every day are wished a Happy Birthday on Facebook and they are dead! That can be creepy, disrespectful and annoying, but more importantly, information left on social media accounts of the deceased are ripe for identity theft, hacking, and phishing. When Angela died, a criminal learned about her alumni organization on LinkedIn and copied a photo of her from Facebook. They then sent an appeal to her Facebook friends to donate money on Angela’s behalf to the “alumni fund” which turned out to be an illegal bank account in Kazakhstan. Her loved ones still grieving Angela’s loss and only recently returned from her funeral, now they were also faced with the complicated task of confronting this fraud. Let your Executor know what social media accounts you have and how to access them. Instruct your Executor to go to ‘My Account’ on each social media account and follow the links to Delete My Account.
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