I read a story on CNN a while ago of an English gentleman who had his whole
life on autopay, including his retirement checks.

They found him sitting in his chair, four YEARS after he'd died watching TV
just before Christmas.  A virtual urban hermit with no friends, noone
noticed he'd died because his rent, lights, gas, TV cable, and all were
being paid on time.

What collapsed this was when the retirement system sent out a form
requiring everyone to fill out and sign to see who was really alive and who
was a fraud.  When he did not answer, over a year before he was discovered,
the retirement system cut off his autopayment to his checking account,
which, because he never wrote any checks had lots of money piled up in it.  
Eventually the account ran dry and noone got paid.  The gas company was the
first to respond by sending out a man to cut his gas off.

Unable to get anyone to answer the door, even though the gas man could hear
a TV running inside indicating someone was home, he contacted the building
manager.  The manager told the gas man of this character's hermit existance
but got curious as he'd not seen him in "a long time".  The rent was paid
and he didn't complain of problems in his flat, so leave him alone.  With
his passkey, they unlocked the door but couldn't open it because the mail
was piled up really high against it.  Once the mail was pushed out of the
way, the two of them discovered his skin-covered skeleton which had soaked
into the chair cushions.  His television guide book indicated December 4
years ago laid on the chair arm beside him to date his death.  His TV was
left on all that time, as was the Christmas Tree, completely devoid of
needles laying on the floor, of course.

Because the apartment had a central exhaust system that drew air from
everyone's bathroom in a central duct to outside, they figured the reason
noone smelled him was the airflow was from the hallway INTO his flat and
out the exhaust.  His flat was also on the end of the hallway so noone
passed by it.

A simply amazing story....I'll never forget reading it.