When Pauline Killian got a bill from Carson Pirie department store for $1,483.30 for her deceased ex-husband’s account, she knew it was obviously not a debt that she owed. She never signed up to be on the account.

Thomas Killian died on June 10, 2004, but at the time of his death, two years after he and Pauline Killian finalized their divorce.

Killian called the credit department if the store and explained to them that Thomas was deceased, he was her ex-husband and that her name was not, and had never been, on the account in question.

She thought that would probably pretty much settle it. She was wrong.

Even though she had never signed her name on the account and voluntarily sent the company copies of her divorce decree and Mr. Killian’s death certificate, they continued to pursue her to attempt to collect the debt. Carson’s even turned the account over to a collection agency who then relentlessly called Killian on her cellphone non-stop.

Not knowing where to turn for help or exactly what to do about the situation, Killian decided to write to the Chicago Tribune “Problem Solver” columnist, Jon Yates.

Yates got to work on the issue and was able to get the company to drop collection efforts against Killian. After having harassed her for three years, they finally removed her name from the account, contacted the credit reporting agencies and wrote it off.

Since this was never a joint account, Killian never had any responsibility to repay the debt. Had it been a joint account, the fact that they were divorced and he was deceased would not have mattered; she would have owed Carson’s the balance.

This situation and the specifics regarding the division of marital debts during divorce is explained in this article:

Divorced Woman Gets Carson Pirie Scott Bill for Deceased, Ex-Husband Dropped!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 2:57 am and is filed under Divorce Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.