PS:
Sounds pretty sad as how many John Smiths do major brokerage firms have?
I would think there are a few safe guards to prevent this like an account number for starters.
After you get it squared away you may consider changing firms!
Safeguards indeed. I recently acted as the personal representative for a deceased person. ALL of the firms I dealt with looked to have pretty rigorous controls to prevent something like that happening. In all cases,I had to provide a death certificate (which does contain the deceased’s Social Security Number) along with letters testamentary, account numbers, estate ID numbers... all kinds of stuff to get accounts and funds transferred. Unless the dead guy’s SSN is the same as Homer’s, it is really hard to see how that happened.
Yeah, and after it is made right.... Get a new broker.. a big firm with good internal controls processes!