My mom lived with me for years and is now in a nursing home. Her credit cards keep calling our home number. Any suggestions?

If she's in a nursing home how much does she need her credit card? I would be worried someone is fraudulently using it.
Do the bills go to her in the NH?
Next time you visit call the customer service number on the card, or on the bill, and speak to someone. They may want to ask your mother for permission to speak to you about her card. Update the phone info, pay the balance and consider cancelling the card.

Hopefully someone with first hand knowledge will be along to help you but you might also try typing "debt collectors" in the forum search bar to find advice from lots of people who have had this problem before.

Unless mom has the money, and unless she is paying her own nursing home costs, she doesn't, why pay the cards? Children are not responsible for the debts of their parents. What is the worst that can happen? If there is an estate after your mom passes, the creditors may go after payment. In the meantime, why protect your mom's credit? If bills haven't been paid since December her credit is already trashed. Not many people in a nursing home need good credit.

Hopefully you are not an authorized user on any of these cards. Did she change her mailing address when she moved to the NH or does her mail still come to your house, trying to figure out if she is receiving all of her mail. Does she have the funds to pay the balances on the cards? If she has not paid and is financially able to do so you may be able to negotiate a lower balance because of all the interest and penalties added since December. DO NOT offer to pay them yourself, you are not liable for her debt regardless of what they tell you. Is she self pay or Medicaid at nursing home? If Medicaid, call her credit card companies, tell them she no longer lives with you, please stop calling your phone, that she is in a nursing home on Medicaid and you are not responsible for her bills. Should put a stop to collection calls.

Tell them she died four years ago.

They will write her off.

Try it

If your mom can pay for the balances on her credit cards then you should help her get that done. She did after all borrow the money and benefit from it.

If she is on Medicaid and has no money to pay, then I would compose a short letter explaining that she is in a NH on Medicaid and is unfortunately unable to repay the money. If she has a house let them know that they can go after her estate when she dies. Further contact of yourself will be considered harassment and dealt with accordingly, tell them their continued calls are destroying your peace of mind. Give them the NH address and phone number. By law they can not harass you and get away with it since you are not on the account. If you are on the account, you are responsible for the bill.

Forward these letters to your Mother's POA, if there is one. IF you are the POA then it is your obligation to assist in payment of your mother's bills as they would be handled by her were she capable of doing so.
You give us no details. Do know that the nursing home will eventually get Social Services involved, and without a POA or a Guardian, your mother's guardianship will likely go legally to the state. At that point Mom's Social Security, and ALL ASSETS will be under the jurisdiction of the guardian and will be used in Mom's care. You will have utterly NOTHING to say about anything that had to do with Mom's life.

Several issues here, from a legal perspective:

1.    Are you an "authorized co-signer" or "authorized user"?   Read this helpful, explanatory article to determine the difference, and, specifically, whether you have any liability for the outstanding balance:

https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/how-to-cosign-credit-card/

2.    I have the feeling you're getting the bills, but don't have any signatory authority, which is better for you.   Is this the case?  You're just trying to do the right thing in dealing with the credit card issuer?

3.    Either way, you should acquaint yourself with the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act:

Statutory language of the Act:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/chapter-41/subchapter-V

If you want explanations, and they're easier than to try to read statutes unless you're in the legal field, these will help:

a.   This is a good interpretation and concise explanation of the FDCPA's terms:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/debt-collection-faqs

4.    Stopping the harassment, written and by phone:

a.    See "Can debt collectors contact me any time or any place?' and
"How can I stop a debt collector from contacting me?" in the citation for the FTC.

Send each collector a letter; f you have a word processor use that, send a signed copy and make a copy of that for yourself to keep for reference.  Send the original by certified mail, or registered mail if you wish.     But you want to make sure you have a signed card reflecting delivery to the debt collector.

b.   More than likely the debt collector will ignore the letter and continue to contact and harass you.  You can ignore the letters, save them, and file a complaint with the federal entities listed under

"Where do I report a debt collector for an alleged violation?"   

Given the current pandemic, I don't know how overloaded federal agencies  might be and/or if they have the time to take action against noncompliant debt collectors.    But you want to establish that you're not responsible for the debt and will NOT pay it.

c.    What you should do though is NOT contact the collectors again, don't answer the phone and don't initiate contact.  You too need to comply with the FDCPA.

5.    Sometimes the collectors will respect the "no liability" notice, sometimes not.  Sometimes the debt is sold to real scumbags who will harass and attempt to intimidate you.    You might have to write a secondary letter advising that you'll "take action" to address their intimidation and breach of FDCPA  compliance, but don't specify anything that holds you to specific action.

6.    I'm going to disagree with Alva's typically wise advice, and suggest that the OP handle the issue herself, unless she's confident that any proxy would do the same as she would.    A proxy isn't generally in the same line of fire as a relative would be, and might even consider how to apply payments to the debt.

No offense, Alva; I've just been through some annoying experiences with debt collectors, including one who harassed my father for a few years notwithstanding the fact that I provided the legally correct notifications.    The issue was over an alleged magazine subscription which my father decided not to renew!

When the initial company couldn't get anything, it sold the debt, and another group of collectors began harassing my father.   Even if I wasn't proxy, I wouldn't have allowed anyone else to act on behalf of my father, because (and this sounds arrogant but it's not intended to be), they had no legal knowledge or legal experience and would simply have allocated funds and paid the debt, which wasn't even a legitimate debt.


Becky, if you need specific help on writing the FDCPA letter, just post again.

I bow to GardenArtist's EXCEPTIONAL advice here, and could only wish to keep this to post to everyone with a similar question. Beautifully written and exceptional advise. Beckyd, listen to every word she says and write it out. I have read a lot of stuff from AARP magazine on with advice on collectors, but nothing this complete and concise ever.

Why is mom in a NH? Is she on Medicaid or private? If on Medicaid she does not have the money to pay these bills. If she is private pay, who is paying the NH bill? If her, she needs to made aware she still owes on the credit cards. If someone else is paying her NH bill with Moms money, they need to be paying these bills.

Medicaid allows 2k in a bank account (depending on the state) and allows a deduction for Personnal needs account, in my state its $50. Neither the 2k or PNA can be used to pay bills. Can only be used for her personnal needs. So creditors need to be told that Mom is in a home on Medicaid as Garden Artist posted. I would send any letter certified mail. This way u have a signature proving delivery.

I was a collector. If you continue to get calls from Moms creditors, you again tell them she no longer lives there and not to call this number again. They have to abide by that. If they don't, you can report them to the FTC. You are not obligated to give them any info on Mom. Believe me, they will find her. I had Moms mail sent to me. I figured it would help cut down on junk mail, WRONG. The junk mail started coming in Moms name and my address. I asked the PO how this could happen they told me it was the utilities. They told me they don't sell addresses. I guess its just the technology now. Moms been gone 3yrs and I just got a letter from a car insurance company in her name and my address.

If you are not the POA the POA should deal with this. Neither the POA or any children are responsible for Moms bills. If there is no money, there is no money.

What happens with debts they are sold to Collection agencies. These agencies only have a total. The callers get a commission on what they collect. I worked for private companies and had some leeway but the FTC is very strict with these collection agencies. They cannot say they will sue unless they will do it.

Many phones have call blocking availability. If you have this feature and have not used it, you should consider doing so.

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MOMS DEBTS! Do not let these creditors tell you otherwise.

If its the Legal Dept calling you may want to ask them what they need to prove that Mom has no money. Explain again that she is in a NH on Medicaid. She has no money and no assets. If they mention a lawsuit, tell them it will be money wasted on their part because Mom has no money or assets. There is no estate. Her SS goes to the NH to offset her care. When you find out what they need tell them you will send it to them when you are able to get the info together. In the meantime they are not to call you again. You will consider it harassment and report them to the FTC if they do. Do not allow them to intimidate you. You are in the right here.

One thing, forget the wording but they cannot sue against Moms SS. Its illegal. If they request Moms bank statement. Make it clear any money in it is what Medicaid allows and cannot be used for bills, only for her personnally. You may want to check this out with Moms caseworker to confirm wgat I said. I can't find in writing what you can do with money allowed. If there isn't any, then no worry. After Moms spend down she had $184.

You may need to consult with a lawyer. He may be able to draft a letter stating that Mom is in a NH on Medicaid and as such has no money. If they need more info they can contact him. Have him also stipulate that they are to stop all calls to you. If money is a problem, there is legal aid.

I don't wish to denigrate or challenge JoAnn's advice; she's a good, faithful and knowledgeable contributor.

But I did some legal research back in the day when I dealt with some debt collectors, and more recently when someone with a similar name in Detroit was stiffing AT&T and they concluded that Detroit and the suburb in which I live were the same.   So they were harassing me.   I also had experience when a scumbag gave my parents and my information to his debt collectors and we were harrassed.

One of the suggestions from the legal (as in law firm) sites I researched was to give NO MORE information than denial of the debt.    Reason:  if they sense that you're trying to explain, it gives them leverage to pressure you more, to try to get you to admit to details you don't want to share.   Another reason is based on the FDCPA of what information you may or may not be required to give.

And do EVERYTHING in writing!   This is mandatory.    Debt collectors aren't negotiators; they're bloodhounds (except JoAnn, of course!), and they'll use any information they can get.   

Do NOT attempt to negotiate with them; it solves nothing and only gives them more leverage.

She hasn't paid bills since December. When did she move to the NH? Just because she moved doesn't mean she isn't responsible for paying bills that she incurred and that are owed. Moving to NH doesn't negate the bills if they were in fact her bills and if she owes on them.

There is a book you can probably get from the library or even on line called "Stop it". It's more for people in debt but will work for this. or.... Send the callers a certified letter telling them she no longer lives with you and they are to stop calling. That's harassment and you are NOT responsible for her debts. They will write them off as there is no way for them to collect from her. They may try to guilt you into paying but don't do it.

Just know you are not responsible for her debt unless you were a signature on the credit cards If you want them to stop bothering you with phone calls -

I suggest contacting them and informing creditors she has no money and no intension of paying, if you do for some reason feel obligated to pay them you can negotiate a sizable discount and pay from your own funds , but you are not obligated to do so.

I wanted to add, I had bill collectors calling me over money my son had owed. I was visiting in California at the time and because my area code was in Florida (Central) they were calling me very early in the morning waking everyone up. I explained I had no information to give them and that I was in California so stop calling. They wouldn't. I got on line and found what I thought was a dirt bag lawyer that claimed they could sue them for me. So I gave them permission to handle it. To my upmost surprise the calls stopped. Six months later I got a check that was awarded to me from a class action law suite against the bill collector. Of course the lawyer got most of it but they did all the work. I wish I could remember whom this guy ways that did that for me but we are talking years ago. They are not allowed to call you once you tell them to stop.

You mentioned that your are not sure what happened to her money since December. Are you able to look at her bank records to be sure no one has taken money they weren't authorized to take? Are there recurring charges on credit cards that need to be stopped? I'm thinking in terms of automatically renewing magazine subscriptions or those scammy TV products (cbd oil seems to be a big one) in particular.

I had the same problem when my sister passed away. We’d lived together for 15 years. They’d tell me I needed to do this or that and I told them right back that I didn’t need to do anything!

download. WHOSCALL from the App Store. It’s free.

they have a database of thousands of spam numbers and also bill collectors. Your phone won’t ring unless it’s a number that hasn’t been reported yet

then you report the number and it won’t ring again once you’ve reported it. It will go to voicemail directly.

best of luck and warm wishes to your Mom!

I’ve been using it for over a year!

Are you sure they are even valid bills? If she in in NH how is she incurring any debt. When did she go into nursing home and when were the debts incurred? Maybe someone using her credit card number.

My friends mom lived the high life with her cards knowing she was not going to be able to pay them off in a timely manor. She would send them 20 bucks each month. When she passed, they tried to get my friend to pay even though she was not in the card. It was close to 10k. She finally got a hold of an attorney and He fixed it so they would not call her or contact her again. She was so relieved.

Your phone company has legal obligations to you regarding such nuisance calls. If you have not already done so, write down the names of the companies who call, with the name of the person you speak to. Tell them very clearly that the person they are trying to reach is not at the number they are calling. Then tell them that you will take legal action if there are any more harassing calls from their company. Write down the date on your list. If they call again, contact your phone carrier and make a formal complaint. Your phone company should follow through.

Do not explain that the person they are calling is your mother. Do not tell them she used to live with you. The only information to which they are entitled is that the number they are calling is not a number where their debtor can be reached. For those who have left messages, send letters. If all else fails, (or if you have already done this) change your number. Your carrier should do this for no charge. It is a bit of a hassle to change your contact number for all the companies with whom you do business. Calling your friends and relatives is not so much of a hassle. Chances are you need to catch up with some of them anyway. Best of all, you will be rid of the nagging phone calls and get a little peace in your life. It sounds like you need that.

I found that when I changed my number, it took me only a few hours to update all of my accounts on the internet. (Don't forget your insurance company. Easy to overlook as you only deal with them once or twice per year.) Phone calls to friends and relatives were stretched out over a week and presented a nice chance to visit with some whom I rarely visit. It was also a nice opportunity to forego informing a few charities I no longer supported and a very few former friends that were no longer a meaningful part of my life.

I found that changing my number made me feel more in control of my life. Overall the experience was a very good one. I now use only a cell phone. All of my closest friends and relatives have one ringtone. The next tier of contacts has another ringtone. The default ringtone is only for people not in my contact list. I never answer that unless I am expecting a call from a doctor's office or business and the area code and prefix match the location. I feel so much more free now that I have broken a very old habit of feeling the need always to answer the phone. I hope something similar will come your way. Good luck and peace to you.

Your mom owes and they want to be paid.

If your mom has the money, set up auto bill pay for her to pay them off.

If your mom no longer has the money to do this, then you should call the Credit Card Co and let them know she is in a Nursing Home and no longer can afford to make payments to them.

Of course this will mean bad credit for your mom and no use of future credit cards.

Aksi if sge owns a house, they can put a line against it.

Sonetime the credut card Co will accept a lot less than owed if it's offered.

"61 years old disabled made POA jointly with sister for mom while in nursing home."
From another post, it sounds like this placement is permanent and she is on Medicaid. If so, whatever bills are outstanding can't be covered by current and future income (SS or other, as Medicaid will require those funds) and should not be paid by you.

"Im not sure what happened to her money since December. I tried to talk to her about it but she refused."
You have POA, go to the bank and use POA to inquire about her account(s) and request statements dating back to December or more, if they were not sent to her at your address. IF you can locate any funds, have them put a hold on them. These may have to be used to cover some of her financial obligations, but only after you get legal help!

"She did not change her address."
This really makes no difference. Debt collectors do what is called skip tracing. It is even EASIER today, as a lot of information is on the internet. Additionally, even the PO provides new addresses (helping a cat shelter update their mailing list, a number of letters sent out were returned with a label attached. Some had a new address, others had no information. Doing a search with my cell phone, I confirmed a lot of the new addresses and found other newer ones.)

When my son split with his former, I did get a call to my home phone regarding something she owed. She was NEVER on my phone acct, she had her own cell. I told them yes, they had lived with me, but that was years before, they had split then and I have no idea where she is. Lucky for me that was the end of it.

As for mailings - I forwarded my mother's mail to my address, so I could contact her billers and update the mailing address for her accounts to my address. CC was the worst - even with POA, limited access, but enough to get by. All others were fine with the change. Now I get ALL kinds of junk mail in her name (she was moved to MC, still there.) Not only that, I get junk mail for my son, who has NEVER lived in this house (I moved here 6 years ago.) Most recently I got junk mail for my ex, who not only didn't live here, but we split almost 40 years ago, he'd been married twice more since then AND he died about 4-5 years ago!!!

I would recommend spending a little money and getting legal help. You are NOT obligated to pay her debts, but WILL benefit from legal help. Debt collector's can be relentless, as you have seen. I wouldn't contact them, just get whatever you can about their info and provide it to the lawyer. Get those statements from her bank. The atty may need to see those as well. If bills are coming with NEW charges, those need to be stopped. Statements for any accounts she has should be gathered up as well. Review them and if any charges are recent, I would dispute those. Look for recurring charges. Have the cards cancelled as she has no need for them. With atty, explore how to freeze her credit reports (this will prevent ANYONE from opening new accts, renting, employment, etc.)

While you can certainly try to tackle this alone, I think you need legal help. Review bank and bill statements, and some letters from them to the creditors shouldn't cost too much, but will take the load off of you and help restore your sanity. If it were me and I had a cell phone, I would either cancel the home phone or have the number changed and make it private. The phone company didn't charge me to change my number when I had to do this once. Anyone you care about should have your cell number and be programmed in. Ignore ANY calls that are not! I also have a free spam filter, forced on cell providers by the feds! It catches a lot, but many spoofed numbers do get through - I just ignore/dismiss those calls (even get calls that show up as VoiceMail, so clearly they are spoofing my own number!)

Tell the bank what's going on. Change her address online with the postal service. You are not responsible to pay anything. Throw the bills away.

Better get handle on her finances by POA etc. so you can tell those companies, doesn’t matter if credit, medical, or anything they paid on before at home, that your not responsible. Or use the internet for goodness sake on what to write in a letter to them. Just saying.

Just to show how insidious the whole data information/mining is, I found one site that I could search my ex's name and state and with NO charge could select the Relatives tab.

TWO listings:
One had his name, what age he would be now, if he were still alive, 3 towns he lived in or was associated with, my name, my daughter's married name, and his other 2 subsequent wive's names!
The second listing also shows his name and "age", plus our former town of residence, MY town of residence (again, divorced almost 40 yrs ago, bought this place 6 yrs ago!), my son's name, my daughter's married name AND the kicker - that former spouse of my son (split up ~2010!)!!!!

Even more disturbing - the ex died 9/2/14 - SIX years ago, and not too long after I bought this place! His OBIT is also online, so clearly that data mining business doesn't bother with that important information.

Mailing lists were a thing many years ago, even before the internet. Not as easy to get the info, but clearly ANYONE who had your name and address could sell the mailing lists to make money. NOW it is even worse! It doesn't matter if your LO lived with you or not - as long as they can associate you with that person, they WILL list you with them and/or them with you. So, in OP's case, even if her mother had never lived with her, they WOULD find her and harass her!

Ever see Garfield's Halloween? The old man says:

"Believe it, my friends! The pirates had a ten-year-old cabin boy. I was that boy. I was there. I never took the treasure because they would have found me. There's no escaping them! They know we're here! They know who we are!"

So, yes, "they" out there KNOW who we are, they KNOW how to find us and they WILL find you and harass the hell out of you!

FWIW I've never had FB or any of those social media tools really. This started many years ago, before I was "active" in any kind of postings online. The only time anyone was on my accounts was the ex - stopped about 40 years ago, so it isn't even that. So it isn't something I or any of us have done, it IS because data mining is a BIG business! Sordid, often wrong, but big business nevertheless. There is a LOT of money tied up in this business.

When my mom went long term care in nursing home & on medi-caid all her money went to nursing home. I was DPOA. I sent all credit card companies a certified return receipt letter stating she had no money or assets to pay that all her money goes for her care. I got a mail box just for her & informed them of the new address. I also sent copy of the power of attorney. I didn't want her phone number or nursing home address given out I didn't want her to have contact. They will call if they have your number & won't talk to you unless you have power of attorney. I tried to negotiate for 10% but never said who would pay. Never could come to agreement. Be brief less said the better. They will send to collection agencies & it starts all over again. At some point I just stopped sending POA's & told them to get it from CCard company. I said the same thing each time she has no money or assets & all her money goes to her care. One company wrote off, the others kept this up for three years. After she passed they look to see if there is probate if not some asked any family member wants to pay, I said no. I would have preferred to have negotiated just to be done with it, but it's there loss now. It's unsecured debt & they know it. Keep documentation of phone calls & conversation & any correspondence. Be brief & say the same thing & sometimes you just have to say thank you & hang up. At some point ignore phone calls & letters. Be polite, but they will try anything to get you to pay you are not responsible if you are not on account. Her credit will be ruined but so what.

I would not throw anything away until this is resolved.

Gather as much documentation as you can. You may need to hire legal help to make this stop - writing letters isn't going to scare these predators. THEY will toss your letters and continue to harass you. The primary biller may not, but they WILL sell debt off to collectors. THEY will be relentless.

It would be best to gather ALL documentation you can get your hands on, bills, statements, banking info, everything she can, in order to have it for review with legal representation if writing letters to cease and desist don't work. IF your letter writing makes these stop, great. Box up everything and store it for a while. You never know what ghost may come back from the dead to haunt you (see Debt Buyers video link below.)

In your letters to these vultures, I would also request documentation from them stating clearly that they are absolving the debt IF they do agree to do so. But, do watch that video! Zombie Debt is what some call it, and it CAN come back later, even after you think it is resolved and/or the statute of limitations has expired. Protect yourself!

If you've never seen it, John Oliver did a show on Debt Buyers and another on Credit Reports. While this isn't a Credit Report issue, the harassment from collections IS also covered in here and in some cases it has taken these people YEARS to resolve it! Despite this being your mother's debt, it falls under the same umbrella for debt collectors. They don't care. They get PAID to harass you!

Now, if a simple letter to each of the places that have contacted OP suffices, great. If not, again I would suggest getting legal help. I'd still box up any documents you can collect and hold on to them.

I will start with a disclaimer taken from a news article about his show:

"Disclaimer: John Oliver is not suitable for children or people offended by raunchy humor that includes obscenities. But on the problems with credit reporting he is exactly correct."

He IS primarily a comedian and is on cable, so no real restrictions on language, etc. BUT the topics he covers and the details provided, including video from those who are victimized, are well worth suffering through these if you are easily offended. The online YouTube parts of his shows are about 20 minutes.

Debt Buyers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c

Credit reports:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRrDsbUdY_k

Please check with the bank about her accounts to make sure she wasn't hacked. My husband and I have occasional issues since we are military veterans and our information is "out there" in government computers and databases. The same thing can happen to others when their information in a government database. When one of us gets hacked and notice - usually small - charges that do not belong to either of us, we find out which "card" is hacked. Then, we get a new card issued and destroy the old card. We are not liable to fraudulent charges.

If your mom has debt and you are her POA, you will get phone calls. You are responsible for her financial affairs. It she has no assets, please have a lawyer help you get whatever documentation needed to state this. Send copy of the statement and copy of your POA to each original creditor. When anybody calls, refer them back to the original creditor.