Can they really hold your family members responsible for your credit card debt when you die?

Yes. It’s all part of settling your estate.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/does-a-persons-debt-go-away-when-they-die-en-1463/#:~:text=If%20there's%20no%20money%20in,you%20fall%20within%20another%20exception.

So no, not unless it was s9mehow stipulated beforehand.

1) The dead person’s assets and debts are a legal entity called the estate. The estate’s debts are owed to “creditors”.

2) Creditors are entitled to collect debts before the family inherits assets from the estate.

3) Outside the estate, families have no obligations.

4) If the families assets are intertwined with the estate (like a home) then the creditors do have a claim.

Glad I own my home and have no debt.
Thanks all.

^^^ @Dutchess_III You live within the U.S., so you need to beware of medical expenses. End-of-life care can be extremely costly, even for people with “good” health insurance (I use scare quotes, because there’s no such a thing as good coverage). As other Jellies have posted, an estate is responsible for settling the decedent’s debts. A six-figure medical bill isn’t unusual.

So often, people think they’re leaving nice inheritances to their loved ones, but the medical charges arrive and wipe-out the assets. Houses get sold to raise the needed cash.

The delightful U.S. healthcare “system” (more scare quotes) bankrupts people during their lifetimes and leaves decedents’ estates with zero or negative balances. This doesn’t happen in any other developed country.

I googled it, because what I had always heard was contrary to what was written here on Fluther, and so this is what I found:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/debts-and-deceased-relatives

Many people believe when they are heirs, the money is theirs, but only the money left after all the bills are paid is theirs. If my parents are worth $1 million when they die, but owe $500,000, then only the remaining $500,000 is mine.
It feels like I had to pay their bills because I don’t get the whole thing. If they owed $1.5 million, I don’t get any, but I also don’t have to pay the rest, with some exceptions as stated in the link above
California is a community property state, but we have most of our assets in a trust.

States vary on what creditors will be entitled to or go after when someone passes away. This includes credit card debt, medical bills, etc.

Being a spouse you are much more likely to still be responsible for bills than if you are a child of the person who died. Paying debtors is part of estate settlement as others above mentioned.

No. The estate is where the creditors will stand in line to get theirs. That may affect the final value of a particular family member’s benefit.

Not unless the family member is on the CC with the deceased. The estate is all they can go after. And, as a side note, life insurance is not considered part of the estate.