Ha ha. Actually, that comment really was left by my wife. She wasn’t quite as suspicious of DCM’s letter as I was, and actually called them up to cut a deal. Here’s the reason we paid them a partial settlement: we weren’t legally obligated to pay them anything at all, but even after a bunch of stuff (401k, life insurance, etc) passed directly to me and bypassed probate, there were several thousand dollars still in one of my father’s bank accounts. If we were to ever withdraw that money, AMEX and/or DCM could have made a claim against it for the full amount. The only way to “unlock” the money was to get DCM to waive any further claims to it.