Norma's dad died three years ago at age 98 and left an eleven cent credit on his credit card. Every month MasterCard continued to send him a statement showing this eleven cent credit. Norma phoned them to tell them he was dead and to please cancel the card and donate the eleven cents to their coffee fund. They informed her they could not do that unless they spoke to him personally which would be tough to do considering him being dead and all. That call ended in a stalemate.
The statements continued but we thought there might be an end in sight as the card was soon to expire. A month later he got a brand new (higher limit) MasterCard in the mail with the statement showing the eleven cent credit. They were not giving up on this customer, dead or not. Norma called them again and tried to talk some reason into them but was informed again that the only person who could cancel the card was Bill himself. If he actually was dead as Norma suggested but they obviously did not believe, MasterCard would need a notarized copy of the Death Certificate to prove this to them. We could then ask them to write a cheque to "The Estate Of" for the eleven cents but only after she sent them a certified copy of the will to prove she was the Executor and was entitled to receive the funds. This was the only other way to close the account if we continued to refuse to put Bill on the line. They did ask Norma to verify his date of birth and she said "1909, see, that is why he is dead"!
Unwilling to spend good money to satisfy these demands, we abandoned the task altogether and the monthly statements keep rolling in, each showing the eleven cent credit. Maybe we can shift him to paperless billing with the email address of Bill@graveyard.com. If he only knew how much trouble he caused by overpaying that last bill!
It's a good thing Igor broke down!
4 hours ago
What a story! Amazing! It's got to cost them around a buck to send the statement each month - you'd think even a huge corporation would want to save that money.
ReplyDeleteI had to cancel all my husbands cards, etc. after he passed away and yes, I had to send copies of his death certificate; although they did not have to be notarized.
ReplyDeleteIt was all complicated and time consuming and at the time a real pain in the butt.
Well, as far as I am concerned they can keep on sending statements and new cards forever. Eventually they may realize a 150 year old man is no longer using his card.
ReplyDeleteAll respect to Norma and her dad, thats funny. It appears we have another 49 years to go to see if the billing statements actually stop.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually very funny Chris and Norma's dad would be laughing the loudest over it.
ReplyDeleteOne of his short term employers had a pension plan and he got a check every month for $6. He always joked that as it cost him more than $6 worth of gas to drive to the bank, he would have been better off to never have had the pension plan.
After my father passed, we had his mail sent to our house. When we received his voting card we contacted them with the appropriate documents to make the change. Wasn't I surprised when I went to vote in the next election and the women said to me "it looks like your deceased in our voters list" to which I replied, do I look deceased! They removed my name and kept my fathers on the list, after dealing with 5 people and spending 1/2 hour trying to explain everything they finally said "okay we'll let you vote"! Next election it was fixed but my father was still on the voters list!
ReplyDeleteI would max out that card right away and then watch how they could recoupe the money!!!!
ReplyDeleteIf they got the money back from the grave I will defintely cancel my cards!