Apatar Inc. is working with Cdyne Corp. to offer a Web-based data hygiene service for removing the names of deceased persons from marketing lists and databases.
The service verifies Social Security numbers used for customer identification against the U.S. Social Security Death Index database.
Cdyne maintains a database of people who have died. It is updated monthly by cross-referencing data with the Social Security Death Index. Apatar uses data from Cdyne to check the legitimacy of Social Security numbers extracted from corporate databases.
The new service is designed to prevent delivery of goods to deceased consumers and prevent theft of their identities, and to purge the dead from mailing and telemarketing lists.
The Direct Marketing Association has estimated that 22 million pieces of direct mail are sent to dead people annually.
Companies can save millions of dollars using this service to control fraud and file estate claims, according to William Chenoweth, vice president of marketing at Cdyne Corp.
Services for death data integration with other databases and demographics will be sold on a subscription basis. A variety of data verification, filtration and validation features are available, along with such information as date of death, Zip Code and last known residence. Death data can be batch-processed and synchronized for automated processing.
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