<prompt> Human: My dad died a few weeks ago and the scam attempts started last week. These people are assholes and are relentless. We have gotten letters, emails, AND phone calls. My mom has been great at spotting most of these, but one got through--a fake Bank of America letter with a fake customer service number. Now my dads SSN and home address Im sure are in some lovely database waiting to be sold. Anyone have any advice on how to get ahead of this to keep my mom away from scary identity theft related financial liability? Experience with this sort of thing? Ive already made sure his finance institutions know he has passed, and Im freezing his credit on Monday... Anything Im forgetting?  <response>: Deceased SSNs are public just for this cause. Companies have access to them to prevent fraud. 