Her money is gone to medical expenses & she is on medicaid & in nursing home. I am her power of attorney and receive the daily calls (and threats) from the credit card company. One of the two cards Mom had me as a authorized user, so the card company say that they will report the debts on my credit report. They insist that I pay the debt. Mother became ill suddenly and she never dreamed of not repaying debt. I paid down her medical bills with her monies to qualify her for medicaid.
CC is basically SOL on getting paid & will use any & all techniques to get the $. You have to essentially be one tough & consistent bird on all this. Almost all debt stuff has very tight time frames on things, so you need to be organized in all this.
I would first suggest that:
1. you go and rent a post office box which from that point on is where any & al mail for mom is to go. Everything from her SS awards letters, her banking to her magazine subscriptions. You really do not want this stuff going to her @ the NH and going amiss or coming to you at your address anymore.
2. you draft up a form letter that is sent to each & every creditor that states that
there is a new address and that a DPOA for Mrs. Jane Smith, you are asking for verification of her debt (then reference their #' on this) to be sent to her at the new address & that any & all contacts on this must be in writing to the above address. Each one gets mailed certified mail with return registered receipt (the green post card) & you put each one the return address as Jane Jones Smith as DPOA for Mrs. Edith Jones. Runs about $ 8.00 at the USPO and the best 8 you have spend in a while
3. Wait to get the responses, then within 30 days, you send them all letter # 2 that states that mom is on Medicaid; and has no income to pay HER debt; that mom's income is SS and as such is protected income and not subject to recovery or seize by judgement. Again all sent certified & RRR.
btw this is all totally true, SS along with a host of other retirements are totally unavailable for any debtor to seize. The CC and debt collectors will try to bluff you that they will get a judgement and seize the account. Well if they want to spend the $ and go to court to get a judgement, that is fine & dandy. But if mom's $ is SS, it can't be touched. The banks often need to be made aware of the fact if there is a judgement against the person, but once the bank has a letter on this from you that the income is SS and totally protected under federal law, that ends anything happening to the bank account.
Stop answering their calls too. Once you know the #'s, program them into your phone so that you know who they are so you flat don't answer them.
If you are wicked and have your wits about you, you can have a bit of fun with them. Ask them who they are and make them spell out their names and each time you get it wrong, then ask them where they are and again you can't get that right; ask them suggestive questions, like what are you wearing; or embarrassing questions, like you are naked? really you're naked?. If you speak another language, you can do all this in the other language too. I do this with the "benevolent association" calls we get if it's a slow day. Wicked fun!
But really just don't answer their calls, ever.
If you do an online search, there is a form letter you can send to try to get them to stop calling you. You should also get your free copy of your credit report and challenge anything that is incorrectly added to your account. I would send the letter certified mail.