Send the placement
Account holder name plus city, state, or birth year, keyed by your account number. Do not send Social Security numbers.
Solutions · Collections
Find deceased account holders before the dialer or the next letter does.
Check placements against 17,565+ funeral-home and newspaper obituary sources before outreach starts. Pull deceased accounts out of the dialer and letter series, keep the obituary link as evidence, and move the file to your estate queue while the probate claim window is still open.
✓Test keys on request✓Obituary source link on each match✓Custom pricing
POST/api/v1/verify/batchScrub a new placement before the first letter run. Your account number rides along as client_ref.
{ "items": [
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-80317",
"first_name": "Harold", "last_name": "Brenner",
"address": { "city": "Toledo", "state": "OH" },
"dob": { "year": 1948 } }, … ] }
→ 200
{ "results": [
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-80317", "result": "found",
"confidence_band": "high",
"match": { "death_date": "2026-10-14",
"obituary_url": "https://…/obituaries/…" } },
{ "client_ref": "ACCT-80322", "result": "not_found" } ] }In short
How do collection agencies find out a debtor has died?
Most agencies learn late: a family member answers the phone, a letter comes back, or a government death file updates weeks or months later. ObituaryMonitor checks your account holders against published obituaries, which often appear within days of a death, and returns found, possible_match, or not_found with a confidence band and a link to the obituary. You can scrub a placement before outreach, then keep watching active accounts so a later death reaches your estate queue instead of your dialer.
| What you send | Account holder name plus city, state, county, or birth year, with your account number as client_ref |
|---|---|
| What you get | found / possible_match / not_found, confidence band, obituary source link |
| Volume | Batch of 50 per call, async jobs up to 5,000 rows, or a Screening Report for a full placement file |
| After the scrub | Ongoing watches notify your system by signed webhook if a matching obituary appears |
| Sources | 17,565+ funeral-home and newspaper sources; not the Death Master File |
| Pricing | Custom pricing; Screening Reports quoted per list |
The cost of finding out late
What a late death notice costs a collections operation.
A grieving family takes the call
The account stays in the dialer queue while someone escalates it by hand. A spouse or adult child picks up, and a routine call turns into a complaint to your client, a regulator, or a review site.
The letter series keeps running
Letters addressed to the deceased keep going to the house. Each one is postage and print spent on an account that belongs in the estate process, and another reminder to the family that nobody on your side noticed.
The claim window closes quietly
Probate claim deadlines vary by state and can be short. If you learn about the death after the estate has been administered, a balance you could have presented as a claim may end up written off.
What changes
What changes when you know before outreach.
Cleaner placements on day one
Scrub a new placement file before the first letter or call. Accounts with a matching obituary come out of the work queue before anyone touches them.
Fewer calls that end in complaints
When a watch matches, your system gets a signed webhook with the account's client_ref, so the dialer and letter vendor can be paused by rule instead of by memo.
More time to file estate claims
Finding out from an obituary instead of a returned letter gives your estate team more of the probate claim window to locate the court, the personal representative, and the filing requirements.
Evidence your compliance team can read
Each match carries the obituary source link and a confidence band. Your file shows what was checked, what was found, and when, which is easier to explain to a client audit than a note that says "family said deceased."
Less manual review on common names
Name plus city, state, or birth year narrows the match, and the confidence band lets you auto-route high-confidence results while a person reviews possible_match rows.
A starting point for the estate file
Through sales, Family Extraction returns the relatives named in the obituary with relationship and location where stated. It is not heir identification or contact data, but it tells your team where to start.
Which product
Three ways collection teams use it.
Verification API
Scrub before outreach
Check accounts before a letter run or dialer campaign. Batch 50 per call, or async jobs up to 5,000 rows. Your account number passes through as client_ref.
Ongoing watches
Watch active placements
Register account holders once. If a matching obituary appears while the account is open, we notify your system by signed webhook so outreach can be paused.
Screening Reports
Review a whole placement file
Send a full placement or a debt portfolio under review and get a one-time report of who has a matching obituary, with sources. Quoted per list.
Workflow
From placement file to estate queue.
We check obituary sources
We search 17,565+ funeral-home websites and newspaper obituary sections and score each candidate.
Pause and review
Hold found accounts out of the dialer and letter series. Have a reviewer read the obituary on possible_match rows before acting.
Route to your estate process
Move confirmed accounts to your estate queue, set watches on the rest of the open inventory, and let your team handle notice and claims.
FDCPA, Regulation F and probate
What changes when a debtor dies with an open account?
When an account holder dies, the balance generally does not pass to the family. It becomes a matter for the estate, and a creditor's path to payment usually runs through the probate process: identifying the court, the personal representative, and the deadline for presenting a claim. Those deadlines are set by state law, vary widely, and can be measured in months, so the date you learn of the death matters.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the CFPB's Regulation F also shape how a collector communicates about a deceased consumer's debt. In general terms, Regulation F addresses who may be treated as the consumer once the account holder has died, such as the personal representative of the estate, and regulators have long cautioned against implying that relatives are personally responsible for a debt when they are not. How those rules apply to your accounts is a question for your compliance team and counsel.
ObituaryMonitor supports that process; it does not replace it. A match gives your team obituary evidence and a source link so it can stop outreach and start the estate workflow sooner. It is not a death certificate, not a legal determination of whether a debt is owed or who is responsible for it, and it does not make any account FDCPA compliant on its own.
- Stop outreach to the deceased account holder while your team reviews the match
- Identify the personal representative before discussing the debt with anyone
- Calendar the probate claim deadline for the county where the estate is opened
- Keep the obituary link and match date in the account notes for audit
Fits your systems
Where results land in your collections stack.
Your collection system
Results come back with your client_ref, so a found result can set a deceased status or hold code on the right account in your system of record.
Dialer and letter vendor
A signed webhook from an ongoing watch can trigger your suppression rule, pulling the account from the next dialer campaign and letter batch.
Estate and compliance queues
Found and possible_match results, with the obituary link, can feed the queue your estate team works and the notes your compliance team reviews.
Plainly
What you get, and what you do not.
It is
- Obituary evidence with a source link for each match
- A confidence band so you can auto-route or send to review
- Ongoing watches on open placements, delivered by signed webhook
- A one-time Screening Report for a full placement file
It is not
- A consumer report. Not for FCRA-regulated decisions
- A legal determination of whether a debt is owed or who is responsible
- Proof of life when nothing is found
- An official death certificate
- A substitute for your FDCPA and Regulation F compliance program
FAQ
Collections questions.
Should we scrub a placement before the first letter or call?
Yes, that is the most common use. Run the placement through the Verification API in batches of 50 or as an async job up to 5,000 rows, or send the whole file for a Screening Report. Hold found accounts out of outreach, review possible_match rows, then set watches on the accounts that remain open.
What should we do after an account matches?
Most teams pause the dialer and letter series on the account, have a reviewer read the linked obituary, and move confirmed accounts to their estate process. From there your team decides on notice to the estate and any probate claim. ObituaryMonitor supplies the evidence; your policies and compliance team decide the next step.
Who can we contact about a deceased account holder's debt?
In general, the FDCPA and Regulation F address who may be treated as the consumer after a death, such as the personal representative of the estate, and limit what can be said to others. Rules differ by situation, so confirm your approach with your compliance team or counsel. Family Extraction, available through sales, shows who the obituary names, but it is not heir identification and does not tell you who is legally responsible.
How long do we have to file a claim against the estate?
It depends on the state and on when the estate is opened and notice is given. Deadlines can be short, and a claim presented late may be barred. Learning of a death from an obituary rather than a returned letter gives your estate team more of that window. See our guide on probate claims for creditors for the general process.
How do you handle common names and false positives?
Send a city, state, county, or birth year with each name to narrow the match. Every result has a confidence band: route high-confidence found results by rule and send possible_match results to a person who can read the obituary and compare it with the account. Strict matching can also reject candidates whose birth date conflicts with your record.
What if there is no obituary?
Then the result is not_found, which means we did not find a matching obituary in our sources. It is not proof of life, and some families never publish an obituary. Keep the account under an ongoing watch so you are notified if one appears later, and keep your other verification steps in place.
How is this different from the Death Master File?
We use published obituaries from funeral-home websites and newspapers, not government death files. Obituaries are often published within days of a death and come with a source link your team can read. Many collections teams use obituary checks alongside government data rather than instead of it.
How is it priced, and can we test it?
The Verification API has custom pricing based on your volume and lookup pattern, and Screening Reports are quoted per list. Test keys are available on request through sales so you can run a sample placement before you commit.