This is why you don't give your ID to social media
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Awhile back, I knew someone who was using an eBay account of someone deceased to continue to sell off their estate items as per their wishes.
The decades-old account eventually got shut down before the succession planning could be carried out because eBay locked them out of the account requesting a copy of their active passport.
Pretty sure it was a sitewide change and had nothing to do with any suspicious activity due to the estate sale.
I can see the argument in this particular case with next of kin inheriting the account. But it definitely was a huge pain in the ass.
From what I've learned, it does seem like they target the most active users. The thinking being, "This guy is obviously hooked on our site, so he won't want to lose access by not complying." I'm sure there's all kinds of criteria that triggers the request, but that's a pattern some have noticed.
Certainly possible.
The deceased was previously actively selling off their things online in their very deathbed. So the posthumous pattern shouldn't have been that different when the next of kin picked up the torch.
You don't think it's suspicious if a user's account is active after they've died? That's about the reddest flag for fraud you could possibly have. Maybe I'm being naive, but eBay getting notified of the death through the banking system seems like the obvious possibility.
Anyone but DNC voter rolls would see post-mortem activity as suspicious.