Denise Campbell (@FDCTamu)

Update: a lawyer was kind enough to let me know that EIN’s are free. I made the mistake of going to http://IRS.com instead of http://IRS.gov. I did contct the credit card company and they have stopped the payment due to fraud. Lesson learned! We live in a world of scammers. Many of you know that I am navigating through handling everything since the death of my husband; and I have shared information about this experience in the hope that it will help others avoid some of the difficulties I face. Companies and financial institutions will send checks addressed either to: The Estate of …; or directly addressed to the deceased Individual, even though they know the person is deceased and cannot cash a check. In order to cash any of these checks you must open a bank account for the Estate. In order to open an Estate bank account you must go online and apply for an EIN number for the estate, and pay $249 for the IRS to email you this number. You get the honor of paying $249 for an email. The IRS did not ask me for proof I am the executor, just for my credit card information, so it seems that this is a money making opportunity, and the burden of proof falls on whatever bank you open the account with. I was actually trying to simplify things by closing a bank savings account my husband had, just used to have an account when we needed to get foreign currency. It is now closed, but I cannot cash the cashier’s check the bank gave me, without opening this estate bank account. So I am back to where I started when it comes to the number of accounts I have to handle. If I had just gotten a sub and taken off work the day he opened this account, so it was in both names, my life would have been easier.