Mom has Alzheimer's. Can an alert be put on her phone, tv, etc accounts so they don't make changes when she calls?

Thank you all for such great advice! I have 3 brothers and the oldest has POA. He's helpful but not thorough so most things have fallen to me to clean up or deal with from the start.

I've gotten rid of Mom's credit card and am on her account so feel that is a good step forward. She does call the bank frequently though and order new debit cards, checks, etc. I've set up alerts on the account to let me know when things like that happen or a withdrawal is made. I haven't been able to get the bank to put an alert on her account though to not take these calls from her. It's very time-consuming cleaning this up.

The retirement center holds mom's mail at the front desk for me and picks out just greeting cards, etc. to give to her so that's helped a lot with mom not seeing solicitations from all those charities that she LOVES to give to. So that has curbed.

Now to get aggressive with the phone and cable company as mom has made multiple changes to those accounts just in the last month, ordering packages for equipment she doesn't even have!

Thank you all for just being a place to finally feel like I'm not the only one out there who's dealing with this kind of thing!

I, too, am concerned as to why you don't have POA. Why is a person with Alzheimer's allowed to make decisions?

MMF519

Being an only child does not mean that you should not have Durable Power of Attorney. I am acting conservator for my Mother right now until I have my hearing with the Court soon to have the title of Conservator.

If you're using a portal to change this, many are none the wiser. Yes I have had to do the same things myself.

Trying to get bills paid has become something on the line of HIPAA. I get some businesses who don't have an issue helping me.....it's in the verbiage one uses...others will only help if I can prove I have POA.

Yes, use portals if you're able....even though it is basically identity theft, but you got to do what you got to do.

GET DURABLE POA!!

Even when your Mother passes, unless she has a Will, the Estate is intestate and the Court will decide what you get after all creditors are paid first.

Even though you are an "heir" so are any cousins, Aunts, Uncles basically any one who feels that they are an "heir" is some capacity. The Court will determine if they have a true claim or not.

Since Mom has Alzheimer's, you will need to go to Court to have the power that she once had since she is no longer able to understand what she is doing, cannot understand what she is signing etc etc etc.

Good luck and it will not be fun.

I had some success, with simple (if time consuming) calls to customer service for dad’s cable and phone and telling them I wanted to change password criteria and security verification questions, and I told them why I was doing it, that my father was not able to make good judgments and had previously called in to make changes that weren’t needed.  They were helpful enough even though I didn’t have POA and they had nothing to go by except the account history and my story. But they locked the accounts in such a way that he wasn’t able to make changes without talking to me first.

I don’t know your experience will be the same but you could try this route with each company, just calling up and explaining the situation and seeing what options they can offer even without proof of POA or guardianship. 

Get guardianship then you can do these things - you'll need it eventually unless she has made out a P.O.A.

As long as your mom has not designated you as POA, you're in a tough spot...most companies will "let" you make changes, esp if you are doing it over a computer and they don't talk to you. Keeping the pins to yourself is also a good idea.

When I have helped mother unsnarl issues with catalog companies--she has to be present and able to speak to the representatives and give me verbal OK to act in her behalf. This is extremely frustrating---but I am not and never will be her POA.

Being VERY firm with these companies who so love to prey on the elderly is the best tactic. Just be aware that your LO may turn right around and order from some random catalog (after you've told them off) or give a ton of money to a shady charity.

I had to make many calls to undo things Mom did... Awful and a huge time-waster for me. Plus not knowing if 5 mins later she would undo what I'd just undone and I'd have to start over! My best advice is that when you're talking to these people about stopping the calls, use this wording with them: "I'm giving you the chance to explain why you are clearly attemtping to take advantage of a stroke patient. Do not call her and do not deal with anyone other than her POA." Trust me, they were falling all over themselves trying to fix it. One they realized the person has an advocate, suddenly it was all good and it seemed to hold up just as well if she called them as opposed to them calling her. The number of issues in general seemed to drop. I would also tell them she's got no money to buy or pay for anything. The other thing I did (as time allowed) was to call the companies who solicited her by mail and ask them to stop sending stuff. We now believe that she may have been mistaking charity solicitations for actual bills and was paying them... Cutting down on the mail helped a lot and may have indirectly cut down on the solicitation phone calls also.

As others have said, get poa asap as this will only get worse. Easier to get poa while she is still deemed competent. Good idea to set a pin on the account as I found my parents can not remember pins or passwords so they can not access accounts that require them. Also, either take away her credit card or set alerts on it so every time she charges something you can get an alert on your phone. I got a charge card for myself under my parents account and set up all auto pays under my card. Good luck.

I’m concerned as to why you don’t have POA if you are ha doing her bills. Who does have POA?
I am my dad's and all bills come to my address or email. He sees nothing. If no one has POA yet...you are going to have trouble.

Pepsee has great advice - put a "child" lock on whatever you can.

chdottir's advice about address and phone changes is also easily done. Glad to hear you are already doing that.

I went further and cut off my Dad's charge card. He didn't need one and everyone then had to go through me if they wanted to be paid. Easy peasy.

I would think an Elder Attorney could help you with this.

I just finished contacting all of the non-profits that constantly solicit my mother for money, AARP, Red Cross, Cancer Society, Lung Society, Veterans, the list goes on and on. I found that they didn’t respond to a written request to stop soliciting Mom, and they didn’t respond to an e-mail, but they DID respond when I went on Twitter and chastised them there (i.e., “she is 97 years old and has dementia and you are preying on her by asking for money every X number of weeks, money that she does not have!”) I appears that they don’t like being called out on a forum where thousands of people might see!

Great advice! You could also have an access code put on all the accounts. Like a pin number. Whoever doesn't know the code can not have access to the account and can not make any changes. People do this when thier kids try to change or add channels to their cable accounts. Good luck.

Thank you! I changed the billing address but not phone number. I’ll do that; so that will take care of them calling ... now just fingers crossed she won’t call them.

I agree with chdottir, change the billing address and the phone number to yours.

You might try, but I think it would be "iffy" as to whether there would be consistent follow through on their end. Especially since a lot of it is "marketing" stuff, and the people who do that often aren't real particular about detail, as long as they make a sale.

Do the bills come to her, and is that a trigger for her to make these changes? The contact info for all my mother's accounts is my phone number and address, so she never sees any bills or such.

Or maybe she is, and ignores them. She wouldn't be able to figure out how to do any of these things, so I don't have that worry.