Mum owes money. What do i do.

[witchpig]

I have been told by our local paper shop that mum hasnt been paying her paper bill for several months.
apparently she goes up to the shop weekly to pay her bill by cheque. I suggested that so she could see when she had paid the bill. When she gets there she looks in her handbag for her cheque book but cant seem to find it, she apologises to the owner then says she will be back tomorrow but doesnt go back until the next friday. She then goes through the same procedure.
The owner contacted me to ask if everything was ok with mum as owing money and the forgetting of the cheque book was so out of caracter for mum.
I am now wondering how many other places she might owe money to and will they ask me for the money?
On the bright side it means that somebodyelse has noticed that theres something wrong with mum.
The question is how do i bring it to mums attention that she owes alot of money? This months paper bill goes out this friday.

 

[at wits end]

I would ask the papershop for a printed out bill so you can show it to your Mum then help her write a cheque and pay it yourself.

Then you need to explain to the papershop about the difficulty and perhaps ask them to send you the bill instead so you can ensure it is paid by her.

There arent many places these days who will bill after goods are received so i wouldnt worry too much what else will come out of the woodwork until it does. Might be an idea to have a rummage through her paperwork next time you go round. Tell her you've lost a shopping list and wondered if you'd left it there.

Sadly it may be time to sort out a power of attorney at the solicitors so you can write cheques in her behalf in future.

 

[Resigned]

Hi

It was the same with my mum and her papers. She wouldn't pay the bill as she'd forgotten she'd had the papers. She had stopped reading them anyway but we didn't know that. I asked her friend who was very helpful to go in and pay the bill and let us know how much it was and we repaid her. This worked very well. When we realised that mum didn't read the papers, we had them stopped and she didn't even notice.

Mum also ordered tights from a mail order company and they sent packs regularly. She didn't pay for them. I asked the company not to send any more and paid the outstanding bill over the phone. They wanted it in writing from my mum but I told them that she had been diagnosed with a mental illness and was no longer responsible for her actions. I told them that they wouldn't be paid if they sent any more as I'd informed them of the situation and it wouldn't look good if they tried to sue my poor mum. We never heard any more about it and no more packs came.

The other bills we found kept coming were from book clubs. As fast as we closed them down, she signed up for others. They send books without you ordering them, mum unpacked them and put them away then threw all the packaging away. We had no idea which books hadn't been paid for and the companies got very difficult. We had to be persistent and actually only paid for two books although we had no idea where they were.

We didn't find any other debts.

Hope this gets sorted out for you soon, its a worry you can do without and especially sad when you know your relative would never have wracked up debts before their illness.

R

 

[mrsannieb]

Totally agree with Helen. Get them to send you the bill and have a rummage for any other bills that may be lurking. I found that Dad was ignoring bills as he was having real difficulty writing a cheque (and has no idea what his bank card pin number is) so I fill out the cheque and get him to sign it. He flatly refuses to sign the POA form but I have got authority from the DWP to handle his benefits so I can pay a lot of stuff directly now. This might be a road to go down......

Annie

 

[Katrine]

If you think you mum still wants her papers then you could ask the shop if they do accounts where you can pay by direct debit. We did this for MIL and it works well. Every now and again we ask her if she still wants her daily national paper and she says she does. We stopped the daily local paper because she didn't need both of them.

She doesn't find it easy to read the paper any more, but she likes the puzzle pages. It is a bit of an expense for something she doesn't get the same benefit from, but it is part of her routine to read the paper every day and it would be disempowering to take it away, at least while she still expects a new paper to arrive every morning. Once she loses interest, we will close the account.

 

[witchpig]

Thank you for all your advice. I cant have a "rummage" for other bills as i dont go into mums house unless there is somebody else there(long story, but basicaly covering my behind, Police advice). The next time mums in a good mood i will suggest getting paperwork sorted out regarding p.o.a. I know most of her regular household bills are paid by direct debit.

I am going to speak to the papershop about direct debit, i hadnt thought of that thank you. I think the papershop told me because it is so out of character for mum. Officaly she doesnt know that i know about the money owing.

 

[Bristolbelle]

My Mum...

had similar problems and the local shops were fantastic. I also gave her a little laminated card that explained to shop keepers etc what was going on if there were any problems with my contact number (of course she didn't always remember to show it). I also put name and address labels with my contact details and "alziemhers suffere" on her walking stick and later rollator. It wasn't needed often but proved it's worth on tow occassions I can recall - good luck

 

[Isabella41]

It was really good of the paper shop to alert you. One of the shops back home also spoke to me about mum. Its so nice when you are dealing with local people who really know their customers. I already knew there were issues but it was good to know nonetheless. Mum also forgot to pay the phone and electric. She never had a bank account so direct debits were not an option. She took to buying the daftest things and filled the house with tat.

I know manage her money fully and give her pocket money each week. The amount of the pocket money was agreed with the sw and the sw told me to class it as written off money. By that she meant not to concern myself with what mum did with it. It still amazes me how she spends it. She doesn't go out alone and all her bills are paid. Her groceries are taken care of too. I have asked but she gets ratty.

In answer to the question will other people look for their money. Yes if she owes people the likelihood is they will come looking for it. You don't mention if you have POA. It might be a good idea to think about direct debits for all the usual bills. In mum's case once I became aware of a bill i'd pay it after checking it was legitimate. I would then warn the company by letter that mum had dementia and lacked capacity. I told them if they continued to give her things they would not be paid and I was unable to guarantee the return of the items. It was amazing how quickly it all sorted itself out.

Isabella

 

[witchpig]

I spoke to the papershop today and they are going to suggest to mum about direct debit. If it comes from me she wont do it. Why are sufferers SOOOO stubborn????.

Im going to gently introduce the idea of a P.O.A. into conversations in the next couple of weeks. Lets hope she is listening when i tell her about it.