What happens when nobody closes the accounts

People rarely talk about this part of a death, so it can feel like a private failing when the online accounts turn into a problem. It is not. It happens in most families, and the same few things go wrong again and again.

The eight stories below are real. They were described by bereaved people on public forums in the UK and the US between 2024 and 2026. Names and small details have been removed or changed, and nothing is quoted directly. After each one is a note on what would have helped, with the free guide that covers it.

1. The form that kept saying no

A woman who was both her late aunt's executor and her named legacy contact tried for weeks to memorialise the account. Facebook's form said the link to the profile was wrong, though she had copied it from Facebook itself. Every attempt ended with "prove you are not a robot", and then an error. She had every document. What wore her down was the profile still looking as if her aunt were here.

What would have helped: knowing which of Facebook's three routes applies to a legacy contact, and how to submit the right form once with the documents in the format it accepts. Our Facebook guide walks through it.

2. A sister's Instagram, run by a stranger

A young woman died, and some time later her Instagram account came back to life. Someone had taken it over and was posting and messaging her friends. Her sister had no login, no recovery email and no way to reach a person at Instagram, and each report went nowhere.

What would have helped: memorialising the account early. A memorialised account is locked: nobody can sign in, so nobody can take it over. Our Instagram guide explains both the memorial and the removal routes, and what to do if the account has already been hacked.

3. Seven phone contracts

After an elderly man died, his son found that he had been sold seven mobile phone contracts, several of them for SIM cards that had never been opened. All seven were still billing. Nobody at the networks knew he had died, and the bills kept arriving in his name for months.

What would have helped: a list of everything that was still charging, made from the bank statements in the first fortnight, and a single letter to each provider with the death certificate. Our subscriptions guide explains which payments stop by themselves and which never do.

4. The doorbell that kept charging

A widow found that the subscription for the video doorbell her husband had installed was still being charged to his card a year after his death. Getting it cancelled took several calls, an account she could not access, and a company that wanted to speak to the account holder.

What would have helped: treating the smart home devices as accounts, not gadgets. Doorbells, speakers, cameras and televisions all carry logins and card details. Our Amazon guide covers the most common ones, and the finding accounts guide has a list of places to look.

5. The photos on a locked phone

A man's father died with the only copies of years of family photos on a locked Android phone. Nobody knew the unlock code. The family asked whether a phone shop, the manufacturer or the network could open it. None of them could, and the photos stayed where they were.

What would have helped: the Google account behind the phone, which is where the photos are usually backed up, and which has an official process for families. It is slow and it does not always succeed, but it is the route that exists. Our Google guide explains what can and cannot be recovered.

6. "Should I memorialise my husband?"

A widow could not decide. Leaving her husband's Facebook profile as it was meant his birthday reminders would keep arriving and his face would keep appearing in other people's "people you may know". Deleting it felt like erasing him. She did not know there was a third option.

What would have helped: understanding what memorialising actually does. The profile stays, with all the photos and posts, the word "Remembering" appears by the name, nobody can log in, and the reminders stop. Our delete or memorialise guide is written for exactly this decision.

7. The WhatsApp chats she was afraid to lose

A daughter asked whether her mother's WhatsApp messages would vanish. She had the phone but was afraid to touch it, in case something she did made the conversations disappear. Nobody had told her that WhatsApp deletes accounts after a period of inactivity, or that the messages only exist on the phone itself.

What would have helped: exporting the chats first, before anything else happened to the phone or the number, and knowing about the 120 day clock. Our WhatsApp guide covers both.

8. Planning while he was still here

A woman whose partner was dying asked how to prepare. She wanted to know which logins mattered, whether she should write passwords down, and what would happen to the photos in his iCloud. The replies she got were kind but scattered, and none of them mentioned that Apple and Google both let a person name someone in advance.

What would have helped: an Apple Legacy Contact and a Google Inactive Account Manager set up while he could still do it, which takes ten minutes and avoids everything above. Our Apple guide and the finding accounts guide explain how.

The pattern

None of these families did anything wrong. They were tired, grieving, and dealing with systems that were built for the living. The common thread is that nobody told them early enough that this job existed, that it has a right order, and that most of it can be done with a death certificate and no passwords at all.

That is why we ask funeral directors to hand families our card at the arrangement meeting, and why every guide on this site is free. If you would rather not do it yourself, we will.