Aging in America Blog #3

Wild Card Blog Entry

With the economy lagging so badly, I've chosen to write about a financial situation facing an elderly woman I know. Every year during tax season I get a call from a family friend asking if I can come into his office a few days a week and help answer the phones. He's a tax attorney.

I've been helping out here and there over the last 5 years or so but when I returned to the office this year I was greeted with a list of phone numbers NOT to answer. While I am a nosy person I chose to nod and smile in stead of inquire as to what these numbers were. Mrs. M, the resident legal secretary and wife of the attorney, told me that Mr. M's mother has charged quite a bit of money on credit cards no one knew she had.

Mr. M's mother, Ms. E, resides in an assisted living facility and has no expenses she is directly responsible for as Mr. M financially supports Ms. E. No one knows why Ms. E obtained secret credit cards, nor does anyone know what she charged on them. All that is really known is creditors are calling the phones I am now responsible for answering.

I've never been hounded by creditors before but I've heard the horror stories. They are relentless, rude and insistent. These creditors call at LEAST 6-10 times a day and often use different phone numbers for outgoing calls. I assume the different numbers are to get around people like myself screening the calls with the caller ID. They've tricked me once and yes, they were very rude.

So this brings to my mind the question of how to prevent creditors from harassing the elderly. After some modest research I've found the answer is the same for everyone suffering at the hands of creditors. Settlement, bankruptcy or death.