Rant about downgrading or discontinuing service and elderly parents

[David]

First thing, if you have elderly parents and you're close to having to manage their finances, put your name on the account so your parents don't have to get involved with changes or service shut off.

I've spent hours on the phone recently to close accounts or downgrade service. The one thing all providers have in common is they make it really difficult to downgrade or discontinue. You must talk to a person to do it. But to upgrade it's just a click!

While some are using cheap labor outside the US, some are not. Considering every call I've made is pretty long, I can't imagine it's cost effective to pay a human to handle these tasks versus making it doable online.

BTW, I'm going on two months to shut down mom's internet account with Fidelity/Sparklight.

[oldE]

Amen! My wife has POA for her Mom. Bank account is now joint. Her telephone is in my wife's name, as is the cable. She spent about a year "future proofing " every service provider my MIL used. Life is simpler now.

Best
Les

[GH85Carrera]

When my dad died, I called the cable company and told them to shut down his account. I had power of attorney, but I was not on the account. I told them point blank, his bank account is frozen, so you will not get any more payments. They decided to shut it off after all.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by David

First thing, if you have elderly parents and you're close to having to manage their finances, put your name on the account so your parents don't have to get involved with changes or service shut off.

I've spent hours on the phone recently to close accounts or downgrade service. The one thing all providers have in common is they make it really difficult to downgrade or discontinue. You must talk to a person to do it. But to upgrade it's just a click!

While some are using cheap labor outside the US, some are not. Considering every call I've made is pretty long, I can't imagine it's cost effective to pay a human to handle these tasks versus making it doable online.

BTW, I'm going on two months to shut down mom's internet account with Fidelity/Sparklight.

I'm sure that they force you to talk to a real human because I'll bet a big portion of the time the person gets talked out of cancelling and so the company keeps getting paid. That's how they afford having real people answer the phones and why they don't make cancelling just a click away. If it was easy, then folks would do it all of the time.

[rwest]

I wish there was a law that stated that you must be able to use the same method you used to sign up to cancel.

Shady companies like to make you go through hoops in hopes you won’t want to do that much work to cancel, but would never have you do the same to sign up or no one would.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

When my dad died, I called the cable company and told them to shut down his account. I had power of attorney, but I was not on the account. I told them point blank, his bank account is frozen, so you will not get any more payments. They decided to shut it off after all.

Yep

Originally Posted by rwest

I wish there was a law that stated that you must be able to use the same method you used to sign up to cancel.

Shady companies like to make you go through hoops in hopes you won’t want to do that much work to cancel, but would never have you do the same to sign up or no one would.

I think things have actually gotten better in that regard. I have cancelled a few services, and often I google "how to cancel " and get a page that points me in the right direction often as a sub-page of whizbang-service.com. Back in the day, no way, no how, wasn't going to happen.

[MysticLlama]

Not sure how this will get enforced or how quickly actual business practice will start bending to it, but there is a rule about click to cancel now.

https://www.gtlaw.com/en/insights/2024/10/ftc-announces-final-clicktocancel-rule-for-subscription-services-and-other-negative-option-offers#:~:text=On%20Oct.%2016%2C%202024%2C%20the%2 0Federal%20Trade%20Commission,as%20it%20was%20to%2 0sign%20up%20for%20them.

On Oct. 16, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced its final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule for subscription services and other negative option offers. The rule requires sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel subscriptions as it was to sign up for them.

[Tervuren]

The FTC put this out there with 180 days to comply not too long ago.

Originally Posted by rwest

I wish there was a law that stated that you must be able to use the same method you used to sign up to cancel.

[Tobra]

You want a trust for your kids.

[masraum]

I just got back from a weekend at my mother's. She'd previously been trying to save money, so had 1.5mb Internet for $25/mo. Over the last several years, they'd increased the price to >$60, but left the speed at 1.5mb. Most of what she does is go to new sites (which are full of videos and crap that suck on a slow connection), facebook (again, sucks over a slow connection), and getting pics and videos of the grandkids via text (which sucks over a slow link). I checked and got her an Internet connection over T-mobile for $40 (on our service so won't cost her a dime) and the speed is orders of magnitude higher.

She called ATT and said "I want to cancel my service." The guy asked why and she said "bad service" and within a few mins, her service was cancelled. I don't think he tried to cut the price or increase the speed or anything. He just cancelled the service. I was shocked.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by masraum

---snip---He just cancelled the service. I was shocked.

Please find out his name and let us know...he's the one we need!

Seriously though......my Mom went into assisted living and no one lived at her home any more. I kept the cable because I would watch it sometimes when I went over to do stuff. Then I decided to cut it entirely so made the phone call and the CSR put me on hold twice - each time coming back on to say he was able to get a better deal. Finally I said "You're starting to get me very angry. I have stuff to do - I want to discontinue service - can we please get that done in the next couple minutes?" Which he finally did but sheesh....what a freaking ordeal!

[jhynesrockmtn]

We got lucky with my Mom. She put me and my sister on her bank accounts and my financial guy managed her investment account via a trust before her dementia got too severe. I slowly made her address mine with her insurance, IRS, etc. I paid her bills for about 6 years and when she passed, winding things up was fairly easy. In the end, she just had a comcast account for phone/tv. I turned in the equipment at the store with a copy of her death certificate and was out of there in a few minutes.

[rattlsnak]

Our trust lawyer said that you don't want to put your name as a joint account holder on any of their accounts. We do have POAs for all of their financial accounts and changed all the contact info/addresses to ours on all of the billing utilities though. (but still in her name and we use their logins) HIGHLY recommend getting the POAs done WELL before you think. We learned that EVERY institution wants their OWN POA and they have to be faxed in and then reviewed etc. Took almost a year to get them all recorded. We had a main POA with the trust, but that didn't work for any of them.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

Our trust lawyer said that you don't want to put your name as a joint account holder on any of their accounts.

That sort of statement pairs well with a reason.

[cabmandone]

I just send them my Durable POA and say "argue with this". The only thing a Durable POA can't get around that I've found is a Trust. But even with a Trust, if the POA is worded appropriately you can still obtain the ability to write and deposit checks in a trust account.

I did all of the work settling things for my dad when my mom passed away. Not an easy task when you're not listed on the accounts but I got it done. I'm now only listed as joint account holder on a new bill pay account I set up for my dad to do ETF for auto pay. For every other account I have the ability to sign as POA. I've also consolidated all of his holdings into one brokerage. His internet, electric, gas all have me listed on the account as financially responsible but again if they argue... BAM Durable POA.

I guess what I'm getting at is make sure the POA doc is thorough and grants sufficient authority and there's little they can do to argue once you've presented them a copy of the POA.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

When my dad died, I called the cable company and told them to shut down his account. I had power of attorney, but I was not on the account. I told them point blank, his bank account is frozen, so you will not get any more payments. They decided to shut it off after all.

Here's the interesting thing about POA. Once the person you have POA for is gone, it's gone too. One of the reasons I set everything up for auto pay through a bank account is, once dad is gone, so is that bank account. They can send hate mail threatening his credit, but I doubt he'll mind all that much at that point.

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

We learned that EVERY institution wants their OWN POA and they have to be faxed in and then reviewed etc. Took almost a year to get them all recorded. We had a main POA with the trust, but that didn't work for any of them.

I learned pretty quickly that POA and a Trust are meaningless. You can't grant any powers in a Trust through POA. About the only way to have any sort of power in a trust is to be listed as a Trustee, Co-Trustee (gets messy btw) and Successor Trustee (and here power comes only when the Trustee passes away). As mentioned earlier, the only power I've found that POA gives related to a trust is the ability to sign and deposit checks, and write checks from the Trust account to pay bills. Little work around on paying bills, if the trust bank account is with the same bank you set up a bill pay account with, there's nothing stopping you from transferring money from the trust account to the bill pay account. One thing I cannot stress enough here, make sure every member of your family is on board with the moves you make relating to any actions taken on behalf of the trust.

On everyone wanting "their POA". I ran into that. Just keep saying I have one that you need to honor according to the law of the State you live in. They'll come around.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

Our trust lawyer said that you don't want to put your name as a joint account holder on any of their accounts. We do have POAs for all of their financial accounts and changed all the contact info/addresses to ours on all of the billing utilities though. (but still in her name and we use their logins) HIGHLY recommend getting the POAs done....

I too would like to hear "his" logic ... seriously.

After consulting with an atty, I decided a "trust", POA status, etc. was not best for me (and parents). It's not hard to find attys who disageee either .... for $ .

I do have a "trust" btw... and it's better than any legal document for my particular situation....

When the time comes... discontinuing everything will be easy... ???

Hindsight .... I have exceptional abilities to predict past events... better than 50% on a good day !