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If nothing else, I get blog fodder out of this. Mom's new credit card came yesterday. Not a new account -- just a replacement card for the account she's had for a million years - right. It's the card that all of her medications are charged to... ocassionally a doctor visit or something like that... everything else we cover for her. So the new card comes, Dennis gives it to me and says you need to call that number and veryify it yada yada yada. So I'm gettin' ready to go to bed last night, and the card is sitting on my desk, I thought I'll just go ahead and take care of this now... I dial the number and wait to punch in the card number... I do that and suddenly I am being whisked to a LIVE PERSON! Wow! Where are THEY when you WANT one??? So, the guy comes on the phone ... "To whom am I speaking?"... I play the game... Louise Lantz, I say. Well, he goes into some sscchpeel about how she's had this account for xx many years and she doesn't use this card much... and maybe she would like to absorb some of her other expenses ON to this card. No thanks. He goes on... same sscchpeel... just rearranged as though I might not have understood it the first time. I'm tired. I want to go to bed. All I wanted to do was punch in numbers and get the card verified. I FORGET to be her. I say... She doesn't HAVE any other expenses! She? WHO is this. (busted!) Okay... I'm Mary Lantz, her daughter in law. Well I need to speak with HER, where is she. She is in bed, and you can not speak with her. She has alzheimers. She doesn't even knOw who she is! (the fact is she doesn't know who she is - half the time she can't remember her last name anymore!) Look, I have power of attorney over her affairs; is there someone that I can fax it to and get this straightend out? Well... he doesn't know. He puts me on hold. He comes back ... I will transfer you. Next guy. How can I help you? I explain. He has NO idea. Apparently this had been a lateral move. I ask to speak to a supervisor and I'm put through to a woman. How can I help you? I explain. Well, we can't talk to you - we have to talk to her. Ma'am... you HAVE to talk to ME because talking to HER will get you nowhere. I'm switched again... bottom line... 5th person I talk to... and explain to... gives me a fax number and tells me to fax the power of attorney to this number. And WHO do I address it to? No who ma'am... it just goes to our Correspondence Department. Your Correspondence Dept? Yes ma'am. No.... I need a NAME of someone to send this verrrrrry important legal document to. I have no name ma'am... you just fax it there and they will take care of it. (now... my first "real" job was working in a mail room... I'm envisioning the "Correspondence Dept" as I'm speaking to him!) I said "Sir, do you understand that correspondence can be anything from a letter of complaint to an invoice request to a power of attorney? I need a...." click! He hung up on me. Now... with each person that I spoke with I heard the recording telling me that this call MAY be monitored OR recorded! I can only pray! I scribbled a note to the "correspondence dept." and asked for a "real person" to phone me at their convenience... and I went to bed! I woke up early enough to talk to Dennis about it this morning, and we have pretty much decided that if I can't get a NAME of someone - preferrably in their LEGAL dept. - to send this too, that we will just DROP Mom's credit card and put her stuff on one of ours. It really doesn't make a difference - the payment comes from the same place -- it just is kinda nice to be able to keep her stuff separate. It did however open my eyes to how LITTLE these people are trained to handle legitimate "honest" problems. They knew JUST what to do if I were a thief who had stolen this card! (and I have no doubt they thought that's who I was initially - maybe even in the end!) But after explaining to 5 people the real situation, you would think that I could have gotten a NAME of SOMEone to speak to! I couldn't even get the names of the people I WAS speaking to. I asked for one person's name and he said "Mark"... and I asked for his last name, and he said "I'll give you my supervisor's name"... I took it! Then I asked to speak to the supervisor... when HE wasn't there. LOL! I'm sO glad Dennis and I do NOT have an account with CHASE Master Card!!! Today, I will give ONE try to calling a different number on the back of the card, and see if I can get through to anyone who knows anything... and if not, I will simply cut the card up and toss it away! DONE!