Thursday, March 05, 2009

Killer government

We find stories like this one every once in awhile, and we just have to embrace them. After all, it's one thing for a person to mistakenly think that someone they haven't heard from in many years may have shuffled off of this mortal coil. After all, that's part of why some people actually band together and place wagers on "death pools". It's less likely for a government to assume the same thing. One would assume that they had some way of checking.

Of course, when governments make that mistake, they always are quick to accept that there's an error, and they jump to fix the problem. No, wait, they usually make people jump through hoops to prove their own vitality, sometimes asking to speak to someone in charge of the estate.

For those playing at home that may not be aware, someone can only be in charge of an estate if someone has actually passed away. Therefore, no deceased party, no estate. In the story we connected to, the woman has been unable to make any headway with the Canadian government, because they want to take to someone involved with the estate. No matter how many ways she can prove to them that she's still alive, and quite well, actually, they seem to be having trouble taking her word for it.

In many ways, situations like this are only bound to pop up more frequently with the fears of identity theft, but we also think that the government should be a bit more understanding when someone is actually registered as deceased in their databases. After all, how many people want to go to the government offices when they haven't committed a crime, let alone when they have?

Either that, or this is further proof that zombies are living just to our north.

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