Here's my rant:
1) I have power of attorney. I should be able to get statements, get questions answered, have help when I need it from customer service, without having to pretend to be my mother. I can answer their security questions, she cannot. Yet, I get locked out of online account access. I get blocked from making financial decisions on her behalf, like which bank account to use for deposits.
2) I have escalated these issues to senior executives, who tried to be helpful by sending me coded letters than I cannot access from my mother's online accounts. Oh the irony!
3) In the latest debacle, my calmer sister negotiated a return to paper statements mailed to her US address. Here's hoping the US postal service will still be working in the coming months. My last two packages to the US arrived drenched, destroyed, saved by an interior plastic shield and waterproofed address. All sent with a tracking number, arriving two months later. By the way, they left Italy in less than 4 days.
4) With a growing elderly population with dementia-related illness, which financial company will step up to the plate with a sane and safe policy in place for those with power of attorney? C'mon, you'll snatch up all the business from the useless and unhelpful competition.
Meanwhile, how to cope with the frustrations?
This blogger has a few suggestions
NIH says to take care of everything in advance. Yeah, good luck with that.
This NYTimes article talks about how sometimes people just have to "wing it" when institutions try to protect themselves from liability by claiming they require their own forms. So this is supposed to be a helpful solution to a growing problem? (I unsubscribed to the NYT but for many other reasons so do not bother with a paywall for this article).
As for me? I made apricot jam despite the heat wave in Rome. Smashing that fruit was very satisfying.
