The Outstanding Balance Requires You To Be Out And Standing
My mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a few years ago. She’s over eighty. When my dad died, since she knew Parkinson’s only gets worse as time goes on, she sold her house and moved into a retirement community where she would be able to get the care she needed when the time came that she couldn’t do anything for herself. Over the past few years, as her abilities have deteriorated and at her request, my wife and I have been slowly taking things over for her, like managing her finances and things like that.
We’ve gone through all the steps so that both my wife and I have full Power of Attorney (POA) as well as Medical Power of Attorney, including HIPAA release and all that fun stuff. Over time, we’ve gotten things squared away with her doctors, her Medicare, her retirement investments, etc., so everyone has our contact information, and they all know we have POA and they can talk to us on the phone without her having to give permission for them to speak to us. This is important since my wife and I don’t live in the same city she does, and we need to be able to get things accomplished without having to physically be in the same place.
One day, when we happened to be in town visiting her, we were going through some of her financial stuff. She had a credit card that she hadn’t charged anything on since before my dad died. She had other credit cards she preferred to use for purchases, so we all decided to just cancel the unused card.
My wife called up the credit card company, went through the verification process that proved she had POA authorization to make decisions regarding this card, and told the Customer Support Agent that we wanted to cancel the card. He went through the steps and then confirmed that the card was now cancelled.
After that was done, the customer service agent mentioned that there was still an outstanding balance on the card of approximately $500. We were surprised. It had been at least three years since the card was last used, and we had never seen a bill or anything saying there was a past due balance.
Wife: “Okay, well, how do we pay off the balance? Where do we send the check?”
Customer Service Agent: “You can’t, since you weren’t the cardholder. Your mother-in-law will have to go in person to a [Branch] bank to pay it off.”
By this point in time, my mom’s Parkinson’s has progressed to where it is very difficult for her to get around. Even going out for the occasional doctor’s visit is difficult and wears her out.
Wife: “Well, she can’t get around. Taking her to a [Branch] bank office really isn’t an option. Can’t we just send you what she owes?”
Customer Service Agent: “No, only the original cardholder can pay it off, and she’ll have to do it in person at a bank office.”
Wife: “We’re with her right now. What if she gives you permission over the phone to take payment for the outstanding bill?”
Customer Service Agent: “No, she has to do it in person.
Wife: “But we have POA. You even let me cancel the card. But you won’t let me pay the outstanding balance?”
Customer Service Agent: “No, it has to be the cardholder.”
Wife: “So what happens if we just don’t pay it?”
Customer Service Agent: “Well, it could go to Collections.”
Wife: “And how would you do that? You don’t even have her current address, which is why we never saw a bill for the outstanding balance. Even if it did go to collections, the worst it would do would be to affect her credit score. She’s over 80, owns no property, and isn’t going to be trying to get a loan for anything ever again. Are you telling me that if we just don’t pay it, there’s really nothing that will happen to her because you aren’t willing to let us send you what she owes?”
Customer Service Agent: “…well, yes.”
Wife: “Okay. Well, thanks. Goodbye.”
My wife hung up, and we haven’t worried about it since. It’s been over a year, and nothing more has come of it. We were more than willing to pay them, but they just didn’t want the money enough to let us pay.
