Be Sure & Cancel Your Credit Cards Before...

The following email was received. My response and that of others follow after it.

Subject: Be sure & cancel your credit cards before you die.

A lady died this past January, and Citibank billed her for February & March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees & interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00, now it's somewhere around $60.00.

A family member placed a call to Citibank:

Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you that she died in January."
Citibank: "The account was never closed and the late fees & charges still apply."
Family Member: "Maybe you should turn it over to collections."
Citibank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been."
Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?"
Citibank: "Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau; maybe both!"
Family Member: "Do you think God will be mad at her?"
Citibank: "Excuse me?"
Family Member: "Did you just get what I was telling you . . . the part about her being dead?"
Citibank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor"

Supervisor gets on the phone.

Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you, she died in January."
Citibank: "The account was never closed and the late fees & charges still apply."
Family Member: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?"
Citibank: (Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?"
Family Member: "No, I'm her great nephew." (Lawyer info given)
Citibank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?"
Family Member: "Sure. It's ..."

After they get the fax ...

Citibank: "Our system just isn't setup for death. I don't know what more I can do to help."
Family Member: "Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care."
Citibank: "Well, the late fees & charges do still apply."
Family Member: "Would you like her new billing address?"
Citibank: "That might help."
Family Member: "Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69."
Citibank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!"
Family Member: "What do you do with dead people on your planet?"

What fun it is dealing with "customer service"

Tom

"EMF" made the following annotations.
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This transmission may contain information that is privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the information contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you received this transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you.

My wife relayed my response to a family member:


Here is Kim's take on it:
I think it is important to allow for time for technology to work out the kinks when they put in a new automated system.

Surely, something as new as people dying can't be expected to be worked into an automated system overnight.

It is my suspicion that eventually, some of the people who helped design the system might themselves die as well, in which case, they could well begin to understand and better perceive the valid concerns and needs of dead people not always keeping current with their day-to-day financial obligations.

In my particular case, I have decided that such hassles are extremely difficult to avoid upon becoming dead, and so have decided that I will either forego ever dying, or at least postpone it until technology has had adequate time to become familiar that the concept exists that eventually we won't exist -- but of course by that time, their system will most likely be dead, having been replaced by an even more extensive, all-inclusive technologically newer system.

Kim


Family member, Theresa's response to my wife, and relayed to me:


Ok..... Either he is eating schrooms, is a pocket philosopher or missed his calling as a lawyer who could argue that the sky is green and the grass is blue.

Theresa
Tax Compliance Technician Permit Unit


My response:

Response #1:

Dear Mastercard and Visa,

Upon my death, please cancel my credit card account -- as I will be preoccupied (probably fighting fire day and night -- but possibly arranging clouds or polishing gold pavement) and most likely unable to continue monthly payments.

In the event that I might owe you any money upon the time of my death, please feel free to either cancel said debt, or feel free to try to obtain payment from either of my kids, lol!! Good luck getting them to pay their old man's bill ...

If you are unable to track my death through the local newspaper's obituary column, please feel free to assume that upon no payment from me for two consecutive months constitutes my death, and proceed with the cancellation of my account, as long as it includes cancellation of my indebtedness as well.

Most sincerely,
One of your alive customers -- if at least only momentarily.

Response #2:

In regard to the following message found at the end of this chain of
emails:
"'EMF' made the following annotations.
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"This transmission may contain information that is privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the information contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you received this transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you."

Dear Idaho Tax Compliance Technician,

I felt privileged to receive these emails and therefore have reason to believe that perhaps I have been an unintended recipient of the transmission below -- for surely it must be in error -- for I would never zoom from the effects of schrooms, nor is it a philosopher that one can see bulging from my pocket. Please note that in an effort to be in compliance with Idaho state law, I am making (somewhat) immediate contact with the sender(s) and am willing to destroy their computers and harddrives in its entirety upon receipt of address and location of said computers and harddrives, as well as setting fire to any near by papers (in the event that they might be formatted hard copies of said email.)

In the event that I do not receive such address and location information, I feel that I am ethically -- if not legally -- absolved of any further obligations regarding this matter of unintended email reception.

Sincerely,
A former Idaho income tax payer who has since re-located outside of your
tax-collecting boundaries.


My wife's response:

I hope her emails are scanned, and the authorities don't take your comment about destroying their computers seriously, and show up at my door to arrest you for your terrorist ways . . .