Dad & Me Revisited Part 4

With the help of my Uncle and Auntie, I became Dad's Power of Attorney. Finally, we could bust into his accounts and get a clearer picture of what all was going down financially. The nursing home was chomping at the bit.. for the year he had been there he owed them over $40,000 and obviously that amount grew daily. The bank account should of been relatively untouched (except for the automatic house and car payments) with several thousand sitting in there. His pension and social security had been direct deposited that whole time. I had hopes of writing the facility a check to knock that balance down a bit. So what was the account balance? -$400

I almost threw up.

On top of adding online bill pay to cover all their incidentals, She Devil and her husband helped themselves to Dad's ATM card. What happens when you withdraw more than what's really in there? Penalties. There were pages and pages of overdraft penalties.

Mind you, Dad had been with this financial institution for roughly 50 years. I won't name names so we'll just call them Mel's Cargo. In those five decades of banking, the account was pristine and he did not ever bounce a check. Not once. So how on God's green earth could over one year's worth of overdraft continue to go on without any red flags? It was thousands of dollars in penalties. Why wasn't some type of freeze put on the account for investigation? How about even a phone call?? Their answer: It was DAD'S responsibility to monitor his account. Um, hello? Dumped at a nursing home, can't talk, can't walk, hasn't gotten mail in over a year. How, prey tell, was he supposed to do that?

*Crickets*

They had no answer but still stood behind their policy.

Mel's Cargo & I went roundy-round. Undeterred, I still opened up a fraud investigation against She Devil and her hubby for elder abuse with the bank and the local police department. I poured over all the bills and paperwork and picked out everything that was not legit. The next few months was chock full of spending hours on hold, leaving messages that went unanswered and being bounced from one person to the next. Red tape galore. Still I held fast that justice would prevail. Why? Aside from the truth I had Dad's high school aged son on my team and he was going to help as a witness.

Or so I thought..