Has anyone else come across this? Amongst people I know, one single elderly female has her phone bill in her father's name even though he's been dead for 40 years. It appears that she kept the phone number after moving house and has never changed the name to hers. Another elderly female friend has her phone bill in her late father's name. He died years ago and she lived with her mum so it should have been changed to her mum's name and then eventually to my friend's name. I can't figure out how that's even possible as companies often won't speak to anyone but the named person and ask lots of security questions. When I've dealt with a death in the family, changing the names on things like gas bills is one of the things I'd expect to do within months.
The people I've mentioned are elderly but I also realised not long ago that during the years I lived with my partner/husband (now divorced), the bills I'd set up for things like utilities were in joint names and the ones he'd set up were in his sole name. I thought at first it reflected him feeling very negatively towards me in the few years before we split up, but I still had bills relating to previous properties we'd lived in and he'd done the same at those! Why? We're both in our 50s. Do couples usually have utility bills in joint names? I'm just wondering how my mindset is different from my ex's so that when he was phoning and asked what name he just gave his own, whereas I gave both our names as joint owners and would never think of just giving my own name.