Grave demands on the departed

Allison Steedman of Durban relates very well to the story of Welsh widow Maria Raybould, who resorted to taking her late husband's ashes in to a cellphone shop in a desperate bid to convince them to cancel his contract.

"I feel her pain," said Steedman, whose sister Wendy was killed in March.

A low point was dealing with First National Bank, Steedman says. First the bank sent an SMS to her sister's cellphone number, saying her accidental death policy was being suspended due to non-payment.

When Steedman complained to a call centre agent, saying a claim had been submitted, he was dismissive and rude, she said.

It got worse. That agent's team leader later sent an e-mail - to her late sister's address - beginning, "I hope this finds you well."

She did apologise profusely for the call centre agent's bad handling of Steedman's call, although to the wrong person.

"How on earth does someone, when dealing with a complaint regarding a death claim, e-mail the deceased?" Steedman asked.

Responding, the bank's head of customer value management, Rya-Mari Muller, said: "Once notification is received from the next of kin confirming the client's passing, the bank puts an immediate hold on the account.

"FNB requires the death certificate as well as instruction from the executor of the estate before we are able to follow due process. To date we have not received the required documentation," she said.

"We understand this is a difficult time for any family and as such we will review our communication process going forward."

Steedman said a friend had threatened to throw her husband's ashes into a pool when they were still harassing her for payment of his fees a year after his death.

Contrary to what many assume, contracts don't die when the person who took them out does. Technically, any amount still owing on the contract can be claimed from the deceased's estate.

In the case of cellphone contracts, next of kin are generally given several options.

Cell C's Karin Fourie said: "They can cancel the account and return the device to Cell C; transfer the ownership to the next of kin, or migrate the line to prepaid and settle the outstanding fees to retain handset."

Vodacom's Richard Boorman said the same options applied on that network.

"If they choose to cancel the contract, a claim for the remainder of the contract is submitted against the estate of the deceased. If the executor of the estate can prove the estate is insolvent or there would be a shortfall, the debt is written off.

"We have tried to make the process around cancelling contracts of the deceased as easy as possible to reduce any unnecessary stress," he said.

With retail accounts, most people - 70% in Edcon's case - have credit life policies that wipe out any balance owing at the time of death. But their claim could be denied on the grounds that the account holder committed suicide, the account was in arrears or the claim was submitted more than six months after the account holder's death.

The Foschini Group's marketing head, Kathryn Sakalis, said the company's insurance, claims, customer services and collections departments share the same infrastructure, "so when a customer passes away, and the company is notified via any of those departments, an indicator is placed on the account which prevents any further collections activities".

What if the customer does not have a credit life policy?

"If there is an estate, TFG does claim against the estate," Sakalis said. "If the next of kin claims there is no estate, they are required to produce a sworn affidavit in this regard."

The balance is then written off.

Edcon's Deven Naicker said the company also wrote off the outstanding balance on the account of a deceased customer if the next of kin or executor can't be traced, the estate is insolvent or the account has prescribed.

Steedman's experience has left her with the feeling that, by and large, big companies' systems are not synchronised and call centre agents are not adequately trained to deal with calls relating to the death of a customer.

"I have experienced this with just about every call centre," she said. "As someone who has run call centres for 20 years, I find it disturbing that so much emphasis is being put on technology and not enough on people."

She singled out Telkom and Multichoice for "responding rapidly, with sympathy and efficiency".

• Hubby's ashes get phone bill - Read more about widow Maria Raybould, who took her dead husband's ashes into a cellphone shop to get staff to cancel his monthly contract