You are here:
- Home
- Business
- Corporate Law
- Collections Law
- Father with dementia owes credit card debt
Collections Law/Father with dementia owes credit card debt
Advertisement
Question
My father is now in a nursing home in Pennsylvania suffering from the advanced stages of Parkinsons. He's unable to walk or function normally because of this debilitating disease and severe dementia. My mother has told Capital One that he can't pay the outstanding balance, because Medicaid is taking his SS check to pay for his care. She just barely has enough to live on now. I have a power of attorney for my dad, and I did already send them a letter to the effect that he's no longer capable of paying. They wrote back saying they nee more documentation to grant me POA rights over his account. They've now asked that I send a notarize letter written by him adding me as POA and 3 items for verification of his identity including SS card copy, 2 copies of a driver's license or something with his birth date and address and a past statement with his account #. This sounds fishy to me and I'm worried if I send it to them that I will be legally responsible to pay his card off or worse-they may sell the info and steal his identity! What should I do?
Do nothing at all. If you do send them any info you can become legally responsible to pay the debt. They can't do a thing to your father in his condition. So just let them go fly a kite.
Keep out of it above all. Your father isn't in any shape to be worried about it and they can't do anything to your mother either. Don't let her get involved in it either. Just leave it alone and let them figure it out the hard way if that is what it comes down to.
Related Articles
Answers by Expert:
Creditwrench
Expertise
Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.
Experience
I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.
Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.
©2012 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.