Husband died in 2005, had no estate, I was authorized user of sears card, and I used it for new washer, dryer, in 2007. did I notify sears he passsed away? no, never dawned on me. sear apparently discovered his passing and came at me with full force to pay of that debt. needless to say I was not finacally prepared to pay off. I had made timely payments never late. ever! they closed acct and sent to collections. collection has reported on my credit report negativly. my question is since I was only athorized user, do they have the right to report this debt on my SS#? I live in the state of Ma. Thank you so much for responding to this question.
Laura
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I’ve seen it happen before, an authorized user continues to use the card after the cardholder dies. The creditor says the debt becomes theirs because they used the card without permission. You would need to refer to the cardholder agreement to see specifically what it says about authorized user usage. Bottom line, I’m not surprised and you did get the benefit of using the card.
I’ve seen it happen before, an authorized user continues to use the card after the cardholder dies. The creditor says the debt becomes theirs because they used the card without permission. You would need to refer to the cardholder agreement to see specifically what it says about authorized user usage. Bottom line, I’m not surprised and you did get the benefit of using the card.