Be sure to cancel your credit cards..

[Fishy]

Note to self: 'cancel credit cards prior to death!'



Be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die!
This is so priceless and so easy to see happening, customer service,
being what it is today.



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

A family member placed a call to ANZ:

Family Member:
"I am calling to tell you that she died in January."

ANZ:
"The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still
apply."

Family Member:
"Maybe, you should turn it over to collections."

ANZ:
"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?"

ANZ:
"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?"

ANZ:
"Excuse me?"

Family Member:
"Did you just get what I was telling you . . . the part about her being
dead?"

ANZ:
"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."

ANZ:
"The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still
apply."

Family Member:
"You mean you want to collect from her estate?"

ANZ:
(Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?"

Family Member:
"No, I'm her great nephew."
(Lawyer info given)

ANZ:
"Could you fax us a certificate of death?"

Family Member: "Sure."
(fax number is given)

After they get the fax:

ANZ:
"Our system just isn't set up 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."

ANZ:
"Well, the late fees and charges do still apply."

Family Member:
"Would you like her new billing address?"

ANZ:
"That might help."

Family Member:
"Rookwood Memorial Cemetery,
1249 Centenary Rd, Sydney
Plot Number 69."

ANZ:
"Sir, that's a cemetery!"

Family Member:
"What do you do with dead people on your planet?"

[Lias]

I LOL'd.. great stuff

[mstriumph]

I liked the story where the fella rented a suit to get buried in ..............

[placidfemme]

Sounds about right, had a similar issue with BNZ when my mom died, called them up about 2 weeks after she passed, and they had a moan about the bank fees or whatever, said it still needed to be paid, so I told them when they figure out how to get money out of dead people to let me know and hung up on them.

Never heard back so I dunno what they did to sort it out

[Toaster]

Very amusing but very sad. The debt - if small, in my view, the debt should just be written off upon receipt of a death cert. If a larger debt, then obviously it becomes a debt of the estate and has to be repaid from that. Education of staff is obviously a wee issue there.

[surfer]

Loved the story.

Banks eh, a license to print money with no humanity.

[Quartermile]

Haha brilliant, In our PC world I can see this happening, everyone only getting told enough to do the job....

[Steam]

I used to work in the Contact Energy call centre, and we had to tell the family to please fax a death certificate if they wanted to cut off the power at the deceased's house or change the power account into their name.
But I personally found the concept of death easy to understand, so we weren;'t as bad as that bank. Was that really ANZ, or just a made-up myth kinda thing? SOunds too stupid to be real.