I always enjoyed watching this series until our family was contacted by a firm of "Heir Hunters" We were informed (my brother,sister and myself) that we had been traced as beneficiaries to an estate of a relative on my grandmother on my fathers side of the family but couldn't reveal who until we signed up with them.As my sister and I have been researching our family we could account for everyone way back and couldn't think for the life of us who it could be. My late Dad was an only child and had four cousins,two of whom were deceased,I was asked about any other relatives and mentioned the cousins and the chap from the heir hunting firm said yes he was aware of them and had their details and had been in touch with them too. However we found out the following day,it was infact one of my dad's two remaining cousins who had died. He'd been admitted to hospital and died suddenly over a bank holiday without being able to give details of next of kin,hence the delay in us finding out he had died.Somehow this company had got his details and proceeded to try and sign up relatives. He had only been dead for FIVE days!!! One thing that isn't made clear on this programme is just how large a percentage these companies take from deceased estates, 40% + vat in this case! No wonder they are so keen to beat the competition and sign people up. Needless to say they didn't get a penny out of us.
So basically, if an Heir Hunters company hadn't contacted you, you would have been none the wiser that someone had died ? How long would it have taken you to find out ? I can tell you from experience that it is very difficult (and very time consuming) and very costly to reclaim money, when it has been paid out to people who have a lesser claim to it than you have. As another poster has already pointed out, the fees that heir hunters charge are usually based on their costs of tracking down all the relatives involved.
When an estate that my sister and I were heirs to, was paid out to the wrong persons, fortunately those who got the money had taken out "Missing Beneficiary Insurance", but it still cost us more than £2000 in legal fees and it took more than a year to get the money, and even then we didn't get it all because they had slightly under-insured themselves. Good job really that they had the insurance, because inbetween the payout and us finding out, one of the beneficiaries had himself died, and his estate had been paid out to his children.
Edited by Nick29 to make clearer at 14:44
