Some rules seem to exclude common sense and decency.

In doing her due diligence, this widow was condescended to and left on her own.

She family member took to Reddit to share her story.

This family member’s spouse passed was involved in an accident that left them critically injured. They were in ICU for months and would face permanent disability upon returning home.

To accomodate for the disability, the couple made changes to their home.

They didn’t want to leave their home, it was close to the best hospital in the region and it was their “forever home”, so plans began to renovate it for accessibility. In addition to the renovations, a wheelchair van was going to be needed along with other medical equipment for home use.

Because they were in a hurry, the wife contacted their financial institutes.

As she worked on all of this, it was clear that large expenditures were going to be needed and it was going to take time to draw money out of long-term savings and retirement accounts. So she called the credit card companies to get their limit increased.

Sadly, before the renovations were complete, her spouse passed away after almost 6 months of hospitalization and therapy. Now attention turned to final arrangements.

They were very financially intelligent.

The couple had always been very frugal and maintained nearly perfect credit. All cards were being paid on time, and despite carrying a balance on some cards from the construction (demolition had already started so renovations had to continue – but at a slower pace) money was now coming in from those long term savings.

Despite her loss, she received no compassion or understanding from one bank in particular.

The problem is one major credit card company refused to work with her. She tried to access the account and was told “Sorry, I have to speak the account holder.”

She explained that her spouse had passed away and she was wanting to pay what was left on the card. She also explained that she was an account holder.

Not only was the bank unhelpful, they were also rude.

Evil Bank stated that she was not on the account, she was a mere card holder and she had no rights to the account. The person on the phone explained that her husband opened the account without her and just gave her the card, she “just didn’t understand how credit cards worked.”

Despite the couple planning for this possibility, she still ran into the issue.

This was a lie, the couple had always been joint account holders on everything since they were first married for exactly this reason. They had done extensive estate planning and made sure that all their assets were protected in trusts should the worst occur; they knew their kids would be cared for and their partner would be able to access everything.

Also, she ran the couple’s business for over a decade, navigating a sea of regulations, insurance company billing, and payroll/finances/taxes. Needless to say, she did not enjoy being condescended to.

The widow did all she could to try to make her payments and close the account.

Unfortunately, Evil Bank would not budge. They would not allow any access to the account for any reason, but for some reason they didn’t cancel the card after finding out the sole account holder had passed away.

This back-and-forth went on for weeks with multiple calls to the Evil Bank and trying to escalate the issue to supervisors to address the state of the account.

The conversation felt endless.

In a final attempt to show Evil Bank that they were hurting themselves by this:

“So I’m unable to access any part of the account, even to make a payment?”

Evil Bank: “That’s right.”

“So the account is going to be closed?”

Evil Bank: “No, only the Account Holder can do that.”

“Even though the account holder is dead?”

Evil Bank: “Only the account holder, ma’am.”

“So what does that mean for card holders and being able to charge on the account.”

Evil Bank: “Only the account holder can deactivate a card or modify the account.”

“So what happens if a card holder uses their card.”

Evil Bank: “They can continue to use the card until the Account Holder tells us otherwise.”

“The deceased account holder.”

Evil Bank: “Yes. I can’t help you with anything else. You need to put the account holder on the phone if you want to change anything or make a payment.”

“No, that’s fine.”

Amidst her tears came a plan of great karma.

She broke down crying immediately after, but decided that they set the rules, so she would play by them.

All the final expenses, medical bills, and as much construction cost as possible was put onto that credit card. She maxed it out and then let it sit until the credit card company started calling for payment.

“I’m sorry, per your policy, I’m not the card holder and I’m not responsible for any balance.”

“Ma’am, this balance needs to be paid or it will affect your credit.”

She was more than prepared in her rebuttal.

“It better not as I’m not on the account. This is an illegal collections call and I will be reporting it to the FTC and the Attorneys General in your home state and mine. I still have his number on speed dial. You can make your case to the court.”

(She was used to getting medical insurance companies to pay claims for the last decade or so; you didn’t want to play hardball with her.)

Again, the couple was very financially intelligent.

Remember how all the assets were in trusts? On paper, her partner had no assets to place a lien on; all the cash in the joint checking account had been used to pay expenses for the last several months and withdrawals from long term savings were sent to her account, not the joint account.

They had spent time planning for any scenario.

They had agreed to move all exposed assets shortly after her partner regained consciousness, fearing the worst. Plus, all the income from the business had been brought home in her name for more than a decade so she would actually get some kind of Social Security payment when she got older.

So not only did his estate have no assets to go after, he didn’t have an “income” for the last decade!

And so the spending continued as there would be no repercussion.

Evil Bank was left with a maxed out credit card and no assets in the estate they could file against for payment.

The handful of other credit cards companies worked with her to raise limits temporarily or remove daily spending caps for large expenditures – and they were all paid without a single missed, late, or partial payment.

Karma. Karma. Karma.

Evil Bank had to eat a 5-figure loss – all because they decided that The Wife didn’t deserve to be on the account from day 1.

This was a good woman who was incredibly wronged.

The bank got what they had coming.

She had every intention to pay every bill and expense, she has never been one to try to scam or cheat someone. She gave Evil Bank every chance to accept money for the bill – they repeatedly refused to acknowledge her as a spouse or executor — but she sure liked the irony of the only company that refused to acknowledge the death of her spouse ended up paying for the funeral expenses.

Readers shared in their own stories and their anger towards uncooperative financial institutes.

One person shared a morbid story they had read elsewhere.

Another reader lol’d at the lack of logic in it all.

While this person blamed the call center training.

All in all, good on her for getting back at them!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.