And on a side note some people wind up getting into some significant trouble on similar things. In many instances, an elderly person will put a relative's name on a bank account as a facilitator to permit that person to transact business at the bank for the person. Sometimes that account is set up to collect Social Security, Veterans Benefits, other pension benefits, etc.

The person will die and you will usually hear a story where some time later they find grandma or grandpa stuffed in a trunk, freezer, or otherwise 'disposed' of improperly. People will wonder how they can do that to a person they loved and usually the answer is easy; because they didn't want anybody to know they were dead because then those checks would stop coming.

Its not inconceivable that certain checks would still come even after death/proper burial (social security will pay a 'death' benefit at which point they know to stop paying (or to revert payments to a surviving spouse); but sometimes social security numbers get crossed up and other mess ups happen and those checks still get deposited and the children keep spending them digging a bigger and bigger hole each month. The red 'flag' for the government on this one is the people either forget to file income taxes for the person or when their internal auditors look at the 'account' they will see no corresponding Medicare/Medicaid payments to doctors (gee, grandma has been awfully healthy for the last five years)

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