Tuesday, March 28, 2023
LocalNewsOnly
Linda Baker, Reporter
Here is some useful advice for anyone having to sort out business/personal information for an incapacitated or deceased spouse. It comes courtesy from a helpful member of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) group in Texas, but certainly applies to anyone in this situation.
“My wife and I spent 3 ½ hours yesterday on the phone with Apple Support because a member’s surviving spouse immediately got rid of her late husband’s iPhone AND HE HAD BEEN THE ACCOUNT HOLDER OF EVERYTHING.’
“His phone was registered as the number for 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), effectively locking her out of everything. To make it worse, there was only ONE Apple ID, his, registered with Apple! She could use the computers, her phone and iPad, but as a user, not an Admin. And she had gone in and effectively scrambled his Apple ID. Apple ID’s cannot be transferred. OUCH!’
“KEEP the deceased’s phone and keep it active until everything is transferred and updated-including all cloud data. MAKE SURE that you can access your spouse’s phone; multiple FACE or TOUCH ID’s and Admin rights.’
TIP:
“Make sure in advance both spouses know how to pay the bills and have access to all the accounts with their unique ID’s and 2FA. Have separate Apple ID’s if you have your own phone and iPad when buying them. You can use Family Sharing for apps and the Apple Account.’
“This may apply as well to the Android and Microsoft world, so be careful. Wake up call for us!”
2 Comments
Doug
I am happy to finally stumble upon your website again! I used to subscribe to LNO but eventually I figured out I no longer received it via email. How do I subscribe again, please?
Editor - Nelson Thibodeaux
Thank you for your kind words. Our system shows you unsubscribed at one point, so it will not let us manually add you. You will have to re-subscribe. On the front page – scroll down toward the bottom and on the right, you will see a place to sign up for email alerts.