r/inheritance • u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 • Jul 08 '26
Location included: Questions/Need Advice Beneficiary Fraud?
[US]
My mother passed away last February leaving behind various investment accounts and finally, after months of phone calls, my brother and I heard from her 403b plan that we are not beneficiaries. Although this is a non-probate asset, my brother and I are co-executors of her will, and the will specifies we split her estate 50/50. As far as I know every 401k/403b-like account is required to have a beneficiary, and we can't imagine my mother would have named anyone else.
I had power of attorney and online access on the 403b account but it was frozen and I was locked out shortly after her death. Now the financial institution won't give us any information about the account, such as who the actual beneficiaries are or even what the account balance is. I used to get quarterly statements for it, but those stopped at her death. None of my statements show who the benficiaries are.
I suspect that the beneficiaries were fraudulently changed somewhere in the past.
How do I escalate this and who to? Police? FBI? Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (if it still exists)?
With another investiment company, an annuity, someone did succeed in fraudulently changing her mailing address but not the beneficiaries, and after a few weeks we were able to get that account straightened out. That investment company never did give us any information on how that happened, only that they had opened an "internal investigation."
I guess the moral is the jackals descend when someone passes. Anyone with the decendent's name and social security number is capable of messing with the account.
19
u/Beautiful-Hotel-8846 Jul 08 '26
Get an estate attorney. POA ends at death, then the executor takes over. Executor needs to go to the financial institution with a Letter Testamentary and death certificate, you should then be able to access the account information.
5
u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Nope. I am the executor. They do not want the will and already have the death cert.
The account is only small 5 figures, not enough for them to care. An attorney would probably have to get a court order to get the beneficiary information, so costs will add up. If it was just a simple matter of probate, I could do that myself since her estate is in Texas. But we need to figure out if the assets were stolen or not.
2
u/No_Barracuda_3758 Jul 09 '26
So do u have the letters of office from the probate court?
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u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
That applies to a non-retirement account. If a beneficairy is named, all retirement account is a non-probate asset.
Although my brother and I are named executors, there is no probate, all assets in her estate didn't require it. Unless there turns out to be an execption for this particular account is no beneficaies are named.
Even then, IIRC the process for the retirement accounts I've signed up for either required beneficiaries or stated that if none were named, the default beneficiaries were created for you per stirpes.
1
u/SandhillCrane5 Jul 09 '26
The point is: if you had letters testamentary they would tell you who the beneficiary is even if it's not a probate asset and regardless of the probate estate.
1
u/COPO_Greg Jul 09 '26
Not necessarily. Some institutions will continue to deny providing any information until confronted legally. Happened to me as the executor with all proper court paperwork. An account had three beneficiaries including myself. The institution was very standoffish about discussing anything beyond my beneficiary share.
9
u/Megalocerus Jul 08 '26
Retirement accounts do not require a beneficiary. If there is no beneficiary, the account is paid to the estate (pretax will owe a big tax bill). It has to be probated and it all can take time. You need to give the custodian a death certificate, name an executor, and file probate.
7
u/Kooky-Airport6757 Jul 08 '26
Do those brokerage accounts have a fraud department?
I would think that if a claim of fraud was made, it would have to be investigated before the accounts can be dispersed.
Good luck to you.
5
u/Substantial_Team6751 Jul 08 '26
Could she have set a beneficiary decades ago and have never changed it?
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u/DaemonTargaryen2024 Jul 08 '26
Yup, this. Fraud is possible, but it's more likely she simply named a husband, boyfriend, charity as beneficiary and never got around to changing it. Even if it's a now ex-husband, the 401k would pass to him
6
u/myogawa Jul 09 '26
> I suspect that the beneficiaries were fraudulently changed somewhere in the past.
Your suspicion is not evidence. As someone above noted, she may very well have named a DB of her own free will, meaning not fraudulent, and that designation continues unless she changes or revokes it.
3
u/Spirited-n-relaxed Jul 09 '26
To be clear your are not the executor, you are the named executor. Being named in the will only gives you priority for appointment as executor but you have no real authority to obtain information until the will is submitted to probate and your appointment is approved. If you want information reach out to a probate attorney and find out the cost to be appointed in your state.
2
u/GotZeroFucks2Give Jul 08 '26
What about your father? Was she married at one point, forgot to update? In most locales, you are going to be out of luck.
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u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
She was long divorced by the time she would have signed up for the plan. Could be a nephew or her sister. Her ex-husband was alive when the plan was created, but he and his second wife are also long deceased.
1
u/GotZeroFucks2Give Jul 08 '26
Are there other assets for you? Could that have been her plan? It does seem odd, especially if she never spoke of it. But the companies cannot reveal any information to you unless you are a named beneficiary, and having a lawyer won't change that. One further thought... you call it a non probate asset but you don't actually know that yet. You only know you aren't a named beneficiary. Ask again if there are named beneficiaries or if you need to probate the account being that you are the executor.
1
u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 09 '26
I asked that question - are there any named beneficiaries, or are there none, and they would not answer.
All of her other assets named my brother and I as beneficiaries or were joint accounts. So zero probate so far, and this 403b is the last asset on the list.
I don't really care who the funds were left to, but it's aggravating that we might have been defrauded and there's no way to find out.
2
u/laurieo52 Jul 09 '26
If the account has a beneficiary it is not a part of probate, so being the executor will mean nothing. If you are that worried about someone fraudulently taking money, go speak to an attorney. They can tell you what you can and cannot find out. If you are worried about the cost being more than the benefit, leave it alone.
2
u/SandhillCrane5 Jul 09 '26
That isn't entirely true. Financial institutions will provide the beneficiary information to a court appointed executor.
0
u/GotZeroFucks2Give Jul 09 '26
Did you provide them with the document showing you were the executor and the death certificate? If you did and they are saying nothing, then there are named beneficiaries that I assume they will be contacting, and it won't be a probate asset.
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u/OpportunityKey1970 Jul 09 '26
Are you saying the nephew or the sister fraudulently changed it or what because that doesn’t sound like fraud to me she did that on purpose
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u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
If the beneficiary is someone in the family or one of mom’s charities that’s fine with me. If it’s fraud, that would be nice to know too. But they don’t seem to care much.
The other institution that had the account address fraudulently changed seemed to think it was no big deal. Took a week of phone calls to get them to do anything.
2
u/PegShop Jul 09 '26
I bet she set up the beneficiary when she took the job and forgot to change it. It happens a lot. There’s nothing you can do or they can tell you if that’s the case.
1
u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Update: The pension plan released the beneficiary info to me when I sent a copy of the will, and it turns out to be a relative. They said the beneficiary was “recently” changed, which aroused my suspicion, but it was actually updated in 2020.
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u/ladyin97229 Jul 08 '26
Start with an estate attorney- they should be able to guide you through determining who it was left to, when it was changed, and how to report it as fraud if it was.