"Can you break federal laws for me?"

[shanarocks]

"I'm the customer so what I say goes!"

This lady was actually, NOT the customer. Her mother was.

SC: My mom is not available and she wont be available. She's 96 yrs old. I've been paying her card for her for the past 2 years

ME: Well, that's very nice of you to help your mom like that, but --

SC: IT'S NOT NICE, SHE'S MY MOTHER!

ME: I still can not access her account without her on the phone. Do you have Power of Attorney?

SC: Yes, but I'm not sending it to you.

ME: Well, that or getting your mom on the phone would be the only ways you could speak on her behalf.

SC: Then I want to close the account.

ME: We cannot do that without your mother on the phone.

SC: LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!

So, I get a manager. He tells her the exact same thing. She proceeds to say that she used to be able to and why can't we just take her word for it?
...there are federal laws that we'd be breaking if we did.
It took my manager a while to get her off of the phone. He kept repeating himself. She just could not get it through her thick skull that, no matter your relation to the cardholder, if you are not on the account we can't give you any information.

[mathnerd]

I had that conversation often when I worked for MajorBank. I didn't actually talk to the customers, as mine was a non-customer contact position, but I did talk to the bankers who were talking to the customers. Occasionally (like two or three times a day), I'd have to tell the banker "well, we do love our customers, but not enough to break the law for them."

[NecessaryCatharsis]

ME: I still can not access her account without her on the phone. Do you have Power of Attorney?

SC: Yes, but I'm not sending it to you.

No. No, no, youre sitting there with the golden ticket, the key to get you the exact thing you want,. How can people have the solution spoon fed to them and still not succeed?

[Sapphire Silk]

I smell scam. Probably a kid trying to rape her mother's bank account because Mom has gotten a bit demented.

[MoonCat]

"Take her word for it."

[Cia]

<sc> How dare you ask for a copy of her POA, don't you know that all credit card people are lying in wait to change the names on POAs so you can take over the accounts? <sc>

[gremcint]

ok kids I used to work at a call center for home phone billing and here's a quick story and then something kind of scary. First was I had a woman saying her mom had died, but the account had a not saying "be careful daughter has tried to defraud mother before" so I told her to take the death certificate to a bell world store.

Here's the scary part, the customer had died thing came up a lot, all I had to do beyond normal account validation was ask them to read me the line in the will that named them executor, seriously there was no other proof required.

Honestly though all you really had to do was call up with a bill and claim to be the person if you were going to lie anyways.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

But there's really only so much nefarious work one could do with the phone account (Add new line, upgrade service, disconnect, and I'm out). Inconvenient to fix, but not super crucial to permanent health and happiness either. A bank account on the other hand...

[shanarocks]

A bank account on the other hand...

Credit card account, at that.

Checking/savings, account holder would lose out on some money. Credit card account fucks up their credit, which follows them everywhere. Disputes with the credit bureau are a pain in the ass.

I've had plenty of people call in and try to pass themselves off as the card holder. I get them over to the cesspool that is fraud - suspicious caller unit.

[emax4]

"Tell ya what... if you pretend to give me proof of the power of attorney, I'll pretend to close the account. Howz'at?"

[sirwired]

I'm also sensing scam here... I suspect that daughter ran up some bills with Mom's credit card and needs to pay it down (using Mom's money, most likely) before she finds out about it.

[earl colby pottinger]

Me too

I smell scam. Probably a kid trying to rape her mother's bank account because Mom has gotten a bit demented.

So do I, why else say you will not send a copy of the POA?

[Ted_The_IT_Guy]

"Tell ya what... if you pretend to give me proof of the power of attorney, I'll pretend to close the account. Howz'at?"

That's a win.

If I were in the OP's place, I'd just do what I do at my job when people ask for something unreasonable - mimic perfectly Dave the Minion (pretending to be Lucy) when he was helping Gru with his shyness over asking Lucy on a date in Despicable Me 2.

"Eh.....no."

Doesn't have quite the same effect over the phone though, the look of the eyes (or eye) really sells it.

[taxguykarl]

Agreed with the scam suspicion. Definately flag that account for some kind of extra security. It sounds like the daughter is trying to loot that account to me too. A legititmate POA would be ready to produce it.

[AccountingDrone]

Credit card account, at that.

Checking/savings, account holder would lose out on some money. Credit card account fucks up their credit, which follows them everywhere. Disputes with the credit bureau are a pain in the ass.

I've had plenty of people call in and try to pass themselves off as the card holder. I get them over to the cesspool that is fraud - suspicious caller unit.

Back in the day a roomie stole 5 checks and a cancelled check from me before moving out, waited about 2 weeks then started passing bad checks. It was a checking account that I had for buying special stuff, I would put a fixed amount in like a Christmas Club, and when I paid in what was needed for the purchase, I would cut the check and send it off. I certainly didn't keep in enough money to pass 5 checks for about $75 in groceries over 2 weeks! Only thing that saved my ass was video of a big blond using the check during a time when I was verifiably out of town and logged in at a nuke plant working.