back to article Termination fees for terminated people now against the law

The US state of New York has had to pass a law to stop telcos and utility companies from charging fees to the deceased. Governor Andrew Cuomo said that bill A.8630A /S.6485-A, signed into effect earlier this week, will impose a $1,000 fine to any phone, internet, cable, or power operator that attempts to charge a recently …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would have thought that

    a contract with a dead person is void.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: I would have thought that

      There's probably a fine print somewhere about being dead and ending the contract. Maybe they figure the heirs will inherit the device or account?

      Then again, they're just being greedy asshats whose only regard is for profit.

    2. DavCrav

      Re: I would have thought that

      "I would have thought that a contract with a dead person is void."

      This is clearly not true in all cases: loans, mortgages, and so on are still valid even after a person dies, and the charge is made on their estate. This is probably where for example mobile phone companies can come in, as they have a credit agreement. Suppose that you get a two-year contract for a brand new phone, and on day two of the contract you die. There's a reasonable case for the phone company to get the phone back. Early termination charges for electric or something is pretty scummy, and the phone company could just eat the loss as a goodwill gesture, as it's not going to happen all that often.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        Re: I would have thought that

        Hey, they call it an Early Termination Fee. Your life terminated early, your fault!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I would have thought that

      If you inherit a property, you may inherit also any contract bound to it. So if you inherit a phone... <G>

      That said, termination fees for services to a deceased - which after all had not any will to terminate the contract - are just an example of how far companies may go to satisfy their greed.

      But termination fees themselves should be banned but for very unfair behaviours by the customer, or when true extraordinary costs exist to implement the termination.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I would have thought that

      a contract with a dead person is void.

      If they can turn out to vote, then they can damn well pay their bills!

      1. Phil.T.Tipp

        Re: I would have thought that

        The Hillarybeast is counting on 'em.

    5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I would have thought that

      a contract with a dead person is void.

      No. Think of it the other way round. If the deceased had a contract whereby he was owed something do you think that the debt would be cancelled? The debt might have been a large part of their assets to be inherited by the heirs.

      In the NY situation, assuming the deceased wasn't living alone the other occupant(s) would probably have needed the utility service to continue. This just seems like a way of doing that and gouging them for a little more at the same time.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Two types of contracts

        One where something of value was received, and the contract is essentially a mortgage. Examples would be a mortgage (duh) and buying a car over time. You can't cancel the contract and keep the house or car unless you pay the remaining amount that is owed.

        There are other contracts where there is no reason to hold them to the contract, like say if you sign up for cable and they require you to have it for a year to avoid people signing up during football season say and canceling over the summer when there isn't much on they want to watch. Or an apartment lease, where they want a year term because it is a hassle to find new tenants. If the cable boxes or keys to the apartment are returned, there is no reason they should be able to hold the heirs to fulfill the contract.

        Then there are some in-between things, like a no money down auto lease. You can return the car, but if the car was only leased for two months, it is worth a lot less (being a 'used' car) than the two months worth of lease payments would make up. It might be justifiable for the leasing company to require some sort of payment for early termination of the lease.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: I would have thought that

        "In the NY situation, assuming the deceased wasn't living alone the other occupant(s) would probably have needed the utility service to continue. This just seems like a way of doing that and gouging them for a little more at the same time."

        I wonder if one of the issues is the early termination of the contract and starting a "new" contract with the heir(s) instead of simply transferring ownership of the contract when there is surviving family remaining in the property.

      3. Phil.T.Tipp
        FAIL

        Re: I would have thought that

        "If the deceased had a contract whereby he was owed something do you think that the debt would be cancelled? "

        Yes. Immediately. The detail of the contract is what's in question here. If the contract was drawn up between two individuals then the debt would be null and void upon one party becoming deceased. Think about it - how would the creditor be paid? Exhumed and bills stuffed in his pockets before being re-interred?

        If the contract was between two corporations (artificial persons) then there is the question of 'collective' corporate transfer of burden and responsibility.

        Individuals are not corporations, despite what the courts frequently and fervently wish were the case - which is why they invent strawmen in the dock - we are sovereign individuals, humans and alive and real. Once dead we cannot honour a contract. Slightly o/t but the whole farrago of dim plods, bent courts and their 'justice' in the UK boils my piss.

    6. Mark Eccleston

      Re: I would have thought that

      I can see if the contract is just for the telephone service, but unfortunately a lot of the contracts cost is usually for the hardware. You are essentially paying for your latest cellphone over a period of 2 years. In Canada they mostly got rid of early termination fees and all you owe is your remaining portion of the hardware you took when you signed up. If people (the estate) no longer owe for the hardware they have not paid off when they die then that is just either going to increase the rates for phone plans or companies may decouple their phone plans and hardware.

  2. davcefai

    "I would have thought that a contract with a dead person is void."

    Ah, but this is big business in the USA!

  3. redpawn

    Where's the Problem?

    Let the free market take care of this. If the dead don't like it, they can choose another carrier with better policies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Where's the Problem?

      Breaking Headline News:

      A wave of zombies have just swarmed into the ISP's Head Quarters. There are currently 13 causalities, all of which are the ISP's CEOs and directors.

      1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Where's the Problem?

        And the zombies are still hungry after not finding any brains.......

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Where's the Problem?

        > A wave of zombies have just swarmed into the ISP's Head Quarters.

        How can you tell the difference?

  4. Mystic Megabyte
    Stop

    Greed

    Well there you have it! In the first four posts, all you need to know about greedy USAian corporations.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Greed

      Now we just need to tell the British tax man to stop going through the last 17 years of bank statements of a 92 year old pensioner who has just died, with a fine tooth comb to see if he still owes a couple of quid to HMG. Thats what they did when my dad passed last year, they froze everything for 3 months.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Greed

        "Thats what they did when my dad passed last year, they froze everything for 3 months."

        I had a similar experience when my dad (in Yorkshire) died years ago. The DSS, or whatever name they went under at the tim,e seized the pension book with some BS about sending it to the Belfast Forensic Lab to look for evidence of fraud. I knew it was BS because at the time not only did I work in the Belfast Forensic Lab but my boss was also head of document examination; if they were doing that sort of work for the DSS they'd have needed a lot more staff and I'd have seen them working on it.

        1. Andrew Taylor 1

          Re: Greed

          Which of course is BS, the Pension Books were the property of DWP or DHSS as it was at the time and they had every right to sieze it.

      2. HelpfulJohn

        Re: Greed

        "Now we just need to tell the British tax man to stop going through the last 17 years of bank statements of a 92 year old pensioner who has just died, "

        Weirdly, when my wife died of cancers, the Government plods couldn't have been nicer, kinder, more compassionate or more helpful.

        And the tax guys never got involved.

        The only people who caused any issues were her bank. Her account is still open and active.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Greed has no national boundries

      >greedy USAian corporations.

      Yeah its a good thing a fine outstanding UK firm like BP would never think to cut corners on safety in the name of profit or cause a coup to keep oil contracts, making a enemy for generations be damned.

    3. HelpfulJohn

      Re: Greed

      "greedy USAian corporations."

      I thought the agreed demonym was "USAlien"?

  5. Milton

    I rest my case

    For those who think that this particular curmudgeon is exaggerating when he points out the extraordinary prevalence of amoral, boundlessly avaricious, sometimes sociopathic people in corporate management ... well, I rest my case. They didn't *not* know this was being done.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I rest my case

      >he points out the extraordinary prevalence of amoral, boundlessly avaricious, sometimes sociopathic people in corporate management

      another Baby Boomer "gift". Pretty sick how fast they went from hippies in it for the drugs and sex when they might actually have to serve to owning BWMs and voting for Reagan barely 10 years later. Their big contribution to the arts disco didn't out live them thankfully.

      1. Stevie

        Re: I rest my case

        . Pretty sick how fast they went from hippies in it for the drugs and sex when they might actually have to serve to owning BWMs and voting for Reagan barely 10 years later.

        You have evidence that these people actually exist outside of a Republican wet dream?

        I only ask because, well, common sense. It would take more than ten years to acquire the education and wealth needed for that BMW in time for a Reagan primary, if we agree to start the clock at 1969. I mean, we are talking about a group of people who were non-compos mentis by choice and chemical availability. I tend to think most of them ended up in wholefood shops and working for Greenpeace or just stroked out when the chemicals finished their work.

        Now there certainly are people of the right age who do fit your demographic during the Reagan/Carter election. Do you really believe they came from Hippie stock? You couldn't be conflating an entire generation with a small movement of people centered largely in California, could you?

        Because then I'd have to ask where the "Kent State" guardsmen came from. On film they seem the same age as the "peacenik students" (sometimes aka "Hippies").

        No, I think you'll find that the most avaricious and venal people in public life of the right age came from money good enough to *buy* them out of serving other than in sweet-deal national guards with long waiting lists. Like, ooh, lessee, Mr Five Deferments, one-time vice president, who was too busy to serve.

        Funnily, you can sing that to the chorus of "Nine Voices" from The Ladder by Yes. It fits so well it's a bit of an earworm for me.

        "He took

        Five deferments, this dog of war,

        Five deferments, he was

        Too busy to fight"

        I digress.

        Evidence that Hippies overran the country by evading the draft for the Vietnam War, then turned their lives around abruptly in less than a decade and became Reagan-voting BMW drivers or didn't happen (at least, not in vast numbers).

  6. Andy Non Silver badge
    Coat

    The deceased person should have the courtesy to ask the utility company to terminate the contract as they as going to be killed by muggers (etc) later that day.

  7. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
    Meh

    Standard politician in action...

    New York Assemblywoman Aileen M Gunther, who authored the bill, said that she only became aware of the practice after her own mother passed away and a local utility attempted to tack on an extra charge for early termination of her account.

    Uh huh.

    The cynic in me suspects differently: politicos know full well businesses do morally questionable shit like this all the time, but don't care one iota until it impacts them directly. Then cue the moral outrage.

    Seems unlikely she wasn't aware of the practice. That would mean none of her constituents complained to her about it. Ever. And New Yorkers love to gripe about anything.

  8. PassiveSmoking

    "New York Assemblywoman Aileen M Gunther, who authored the bill, said that she only became aware of the practice after her own mother passed away and a local utility attempted to tack on an extra charge for early termination of her account."

    So basically the American legal process didn't give a crap about clearly amoral corporate behaviour until one of their own was affected.

    Good to know. All we need is for a Starbucks barrista to pour hot coffee in Theresa May's lap for their tax affairs to get properly investigated.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Hot Coffee

      All we need is for a Starbucks barrista to pour hot coffee in Theresa May's lap for their tax affairs to get properly investigated.

      You are assuming that said barrista actually makes enough money to get the HMRC interested.

      Oh wait, the barrista does not have a political influence (i.e. donor to Labour or Conservative) so is fair game.

    2. HelpfulJohn

      "So basically the American legal process didn't give a crap about clearly amoral corporate behaviour until one of their own was affected."

      And this surprises you? Are you new to this planet?

      Remove the demonym completely and you have the standard operating procedure of every bureaucracy and polity ever to exist on this Earth.

      And, no, the boss politician or CEO or whatever probably doesn't ever get to know about the many, many complaints from the grubby little beings she steps on. That sort of information is flappered out at a very junior level of underling unless it can be used to increase the boss's newspaper-inch or TV-second count.

      If it's not politically useful, she'd never hear about it.

      Her time is far too full of deal-making and influence peddling to be wasted on trivia.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    It is a sad thing

    when basic human decency has to be enforced by law.

    A telecoms contract is not a debt, it is a service. If the person is dead, it is blindingly obvious that the service can no longer be used and the contract is null and void as of the date of death.

    But basic human decency and Capitalism are two entirely different things.

    1. Phil.T.Tipp

      Re: It is a sad thing

      Nope, capitalism gives agency to human decency. Without capital, we simply survive. And the devil take the hindmost. The soviets were amongst the most humanly indecent torturers and murderers known to C20th man, not counting Chairman Mao, the Khmer Rouge, Kim Jong-Il etcetera, all anti-capitalists down to their murdering fingernails.

  10. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    FAIL

    The other nasty side of the coin

    Is when providers end the contract and immediately pull all services because that is in the deceased's name.

    That can heap a load of pain on already grieving families. In particular when they lose phone, email and internet access needed to sort out the situation they find themselves in.

    Thankfully more companies are starting to act reasonably, allowing contracts to continue or transfer into another name. That seems simple common sense and good business practice to me; don't kick your potential customers, and not when they are down. Piss people off and they will make sure all their friends and everyone else they know hear about it.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes, but...

    What if you're spending a year dead for tax reasons?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We still have the power on under great grandmothers name and have done since the 1970s as where we are the bureaucratic idiots are just so hard to deal with it was easier to keep paying the bills and don't tell them she had died. The phone continues to operate under father in laws name for the same reason and he died 16 years ago.

  13. Stevie

    Bah!

    If we're ever going to have any law and order here in New York, the first thing we gotta do is take all the dead cable TV and Phone subscribers, line 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em down like dogs.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How do you enforce a termination penalty against a dead person?

    If they have automatic deductions from their bank account, then the heirs have to fight it out with the company if the ETF is already taken. But if they send a bill, they can't make the heirs pay. They could file a lien against the estate of the deceased, but most of the time they are unlikely to find out the deceased is actually deceased in time. By the time they quit sending notices and hand it over to a collection agency, the estate has probably passed probate.

    Guess this is yet another reason not to use debit cards or auto deductions from bank accounts to pay your bills.

    1. peter 45

      Re: How do you enforce a termination penalty against a dead person?

      Happened to me.

      When my father died I called one of them up to inform them and to ask about cancellation, final payments etc. I fully expected to be told to send in proof (death certificate etc) but the only response I got was to be told that they 'could not speak to anyone except the account holder'.

      That pissed me off so much that I just sent a letter (recorded) telling them the account was cancelled and that if they had any debts or needed any more information to send them to me, the executor, and I just cancelled the direct debit.

      They kept sending increasingly frantic letters addressed to my father threatening all sorts of dire retribution.....and I just kept responding with the same letter asking them to apply to me as the executor.

      After well over 9 months later and probate granted, I got a letter addressed to me (finally!) stating that the phone was now cancelled I was now responsible for all of his debts...including the 9 months for the time phone that had not been cancelled. I simply sent a letter back enclosing all of the correspondence up to that point, with an invitation to take me to court.

      Never heard another word.

  15. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    The trouble is, all these dead people forgot to turn off the lights on their way out.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had the opposite....

    When my mum died (nearly 20 years ago) the (UK) electric company not only wrote off the final bill but there was an "insurance" clause in the contract that paid a small amount of compensation in the case of "accidental death" (which did apply).

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