After several months, I received guardianship of my mother for her person and estate. She is now safe in a great memory care facility.

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After several months, I received guardianship of my mother for her person and estate. She is now safe in a great memory care facility.

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The process was long, but several professional reports said Mom certainly needed care due to the extent of her dementia. In Ohio, I thought I could stop a cable service to her home which she hasn't lived in since 12/2022. I gave the bank the certified letter of authority. I am guardian of person as well as her estate. Why is the bank refusing to allow me to shut off the service, where she no longer lives as the bank continues to automatically send payments to her cable provider? This has been going on for months!

Alzheimer's & Dementia Diagnostic Criteria Forms & Documents Guardianship Memory Care

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Might I guess…. Is it / was it BoA?
and is the cable sparklight?

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You may need to contact the company itself to stop the service. The Bank is going to need ALL COURT DOCUMENTS in order to change around the accounts so you can act as guardian. This will be more than presenting a letter, so it's time now to make an appointment with the bank office. If this doesn't go well you are going to have to change banks by opening up a guardianship account in an entirely different bank, and transferring funds.

I can assure you that you are going to need your attorney, the one who helped you get guardianship, for a year to set up what you need. You may need to become representative payee with SS to get SS sent to new bank account. Same documents that allowed you to become guardian, along with guardianship papers taken directly to SS. Expect to wait while they get in their expert in that. I had to at San Francisco offices. No one is well staffed with knowledgeable people anymore.

You have a solid year of setting things up. Then they will run smoothly. But you may be on that cable co. phone for a full day as I was with Spectrum phone company. 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 pm. I kid you not.

Good luck. What you have chosen is a full time job for a while. Consider a licensed Fiduciary to help you in setting things up. Hourly fee about 100.00.

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Thank you so very much for all of your advice, it helps more than I can say. Until her current bank got exactly the paperwork required to their standards by the attorney, nothing short of the second coming was going to stop the automatic payments. The cable company was not about to do much of anything. I did change banks for the set up of the actual guardianship account, it was fast, easy and clearly much better. The bank my mother had her funds in had no choice but to comply with the court order and release her funds to the new account at the new bank. I swear it was like Moses parted the Red sea. The bank now having the guardianship account took less than 24 hours to release her funds. I will address the cable company at a later date, for now they cannot get any more automatic payments as the account is closed. The cable company got the official letter of authorization from the court on the guardianship, it remains to be seen that my mom who was paying the bill, deemed incompetent by the court was capable of cancelling her service. At 92, we will see how hard they wish to pursue the matter. Again, an issue for another day. There is much to do, but I am now prepared to tackle each issue armed with every paper needed to carry on. Thank you, Alvadear, it really is a marathon. I am most grateful that my mom is doing well and is taken care of so nicely by her team. I see her every single week, sometimes more. I rest easy knowing that everything I can do for her is being done now.

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When we cancelled our mom's cable and internet, we called the cable company. Very easy process. They don't try to convince you to stay when you tell them nobody lives at the house anymore.

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Be careful about spreading information that no one lives in the house! Squatters nowadays, and you don't know who at the company would be talking here and there. It's better to say that you no longer need the service without giving a reason. "It doesn't fit our needs anymore," or something like that.

Often you can go online to a company website and cancel the service there. You need the account number, name and address.

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Congrats on doing all that hard work to get guardianship to help your Mom!

Yes, call or go to the cable service's office.

Is someone else now living in her former home? Did they just allow her service to continue?

Did your Mom have a payment portal set up for this cable service?

Please be aware that if there was "equipment" that was leased or rented to her, you will need to return it or else they will charge you the full amount for those items if you no longer have them. Keep the return receipts (my cable service lost the proof of return and I didn't keep the receipts and I had to pay the full amount for the equipment in order to cancel my service - ugh).

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Why haven't you just gone to one of the offices of the cable provider to have the service stopped?
When my late husband died, that was the very first thing I did was go to the local Spectrum office and cancel our service and turned in any equipment and remotes, and it was cancelled that day.

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Talk to the manager or close the account.

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After several months, I received guardianship of my mother for her person and estate. She is now safe in a great memory care facility.

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