What do you do with a mobile phone left behind by a loved one?

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PHOTO/FILE A man looks through his phone. A mobile phone, being a very private gadget, presents a challenge to the next of kin and friends upon the demise of the owner 

By STEPHEN MUGAMBI s_mugambi@yahoo.com
Posted  Saturday, February 4  2012 at  21:10

Owning a mobile phone is no longer a luxury for many people. In fact, the phone is increasingly becoming a necessity for business people and ordinary Kenyans to communicate and handle money.

And because the phone is a very private gadget, the passing on of a mobile phone owner presents a challenge to the next of kin and friends.

What do you do with a mobile phone left behind by a loved one?

I recently went through a rather unnerving moment only days after the sudden death of Mike, a close friend and colleague.

Mike had got himself into a minor disciplinary situation at work and, before anyone knew it, he had committed suicide.

Friends and family were understandably furious but soon got over it.

Funeral arrangements were thus duly made, and Mike was accorded a respectable sendoff.

I was at my desk a week later when my mobile phone rang. As usual, I first checked to see who was calling.

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That’s when I got the shock of my life –– Mike’s name was staring at me in the face.

I hesitantly pressed a button to answer and managed a tentative “Hello?” (It is not often that one receives a call from the after world.)

I was terribly relieved to find it was not Mike but his wife who was on the line.

“Hi, Steve,” she said, then quickly added, “I’m using Mike’s phone since it still has a lot of credit.”

Left behind

As soon as I finished with the call, I set out to learn how one can best deal with the mobile phone left behind by a loved one.

Unspent airtime on a dead person’s mobile phone is one of the issues that friends or family members grapple with.

The other is the need to reclaim any money that may still be held in that person’s mobile money account.

If the dead person’s telephone is not password protected, transferring prepaid airtime to a different telephone number is often the most convenient means of dealing with unspent credit.

You can do this yourself or have the respective mobile service provider retrieve it for you.

Mr Nzioka Waita, Safaricom’s corporate affairs director, says the process of retrieving money or unspent airtime is guided by the laws of the Succession Act.

“Anyone wishing to retrieve money held in a deceased customer’s M-Pesa account should complete an M-Pesa claim form and present it to Safaricom together with his or her ID, the deceased person’s death certificate and a letter of administration,” Mr Waita says.

A letter of administration is an official document that shows one is legally authorised to manage the affairs of a deceased person.

M-Pesa claim forms are available at all Safaricom shops and customer care centres.

Similar procedures for retrieving money from a dead person’s mobile telephone account apply to all service providers in Kenya.

Mr Shivan Bhargava, Airtel Kenya’s chief operations officer, says the company recommends that such applications be made within three months of the death of a registered Airtel money account holder.Safaricom does not have a submission time limit for refund claims for M-Pesa money, unspent airtime or PostPay deposits, but some service providers require cash claims to be made within a set period.

Letter of administration

“The application should be accompanied by the deceased’s death certificate and letter of administration for his or her estate,” he says.

Safaricom also refunds deposits on postpaid accounts.

“Clients making claims for PostPay account deposits should write a letter to this effect in lieu of filling in a claim form,” says Mr Waita.

Sometimes a close friend or relative may, for sentimental reasons, hold on to a departed person’s mobile phone.

In such cases, it is advisable to disable the dead person’s mobile phone or SIM card.

Mobile phone service providers can help with this. Picking up a call that comes through the phone can only result in awkward moments.

Only people unaware of a person’s death would place a call to him or her, and you would have to figure out how to break the news to them, which may see you relive the loss.

Stephen Mugambi is the author of “Wait for me, Angela” (KLB)