My Dad is in hospital with Covid - How do we pay his credit cards billls??

[PolarCub]

My Dad is currently in critical care ward with Covid. My Mum is trying to pay his credit card bills, but we can't pay online as we don't have his login details!
No he doesn't pay them by direct debit - he has always paid manually.
He has online accounts, but we can't make head nor tale of his password book!
Because we can't make head nor tale of his password book we can't access his bank account to pay from there either.
My Mum knows how much to pay - it's written in his diary and she has the funds to pay it, from her bank account.

I've said to my Mum to try going through on the phone lines (but again we don't have security info!), She has the credit cards and knows how much to pay.
I've suggested if the worst comes to the worst them to press the option for bereavement/person has died, even though he hasn't and hope that they can help.
If it helps the companies are Capital One and Amazon Credit Card (New Day)
Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Viviennemary

No you can't press bereavement option it could lead to endless complications. Whats wrong with old fasioned cheque by post.

Cash and cheques are wonderful. This is a good example of why.

I looked round my Amazon acct and can't find any details to make a manual payment via bank transfer but got this phone number for payment issues - 0330 8380160

Do a BACS payment quoting his long card number as reference.

You can call the credit card company using the number on his credit card at the back and get their account details (I work for a cc company). It doesn't have to be from his bank account, as long as you add the 15 digit long card number as reference. Good luck to your Dad x

Thank you everyone for their help.
We have managed to pay both credit cards

Thank you everyone for all help and advice.
I'm sorry if some of this sounded obvious, and I did look at FAQ for both credit cards, but have obviously failed to see some info (i.e the bacs info for Capital one).
My Dad was taken via ambulance early hours of yesterday morning and to be honest we are both reeling a bit.
My parents are both double vaccinated. My Dad is the one who is never ill.
We can't visit, as it's a covid ward. My Mum is isolating as she has covid - I can't even go and give her a hug!
We are also trying to inform family & friends. Also keeping in touch with the care home his Mother is in (she has Dementia, and my Dad usually takes her out every week)
We are usually technically savvy, but hit stumbling blocks, when we couldn't access my Dad's account infos and passwords - as it is indecipherable!
So, again, thank you everyone for their help x

You can pay all bills, I've had no issues at all doing the same for my mum. Hope your dad makes a speedy recovery x

Glad you got sorted. Hope your dad makes a swift recovery.

actually using the bereavement line is a good idea because you can speak to a real person quickly and you can explain "he's not dead BUT"
Secondly I had norwalk this summer and was ill for a few days then very tired. I missed paying my credit card and got a text saying to call them and they were INCREDIBLY kind and helpful...no late fee and a very kind phonecall asking if i was ok now and did I need more time to pay my balance also much reassurance that it was all ok. I think they have delat with this a lot over the last two years, you won't be the only ones.

Call the card issuer and explain, they should be able to tell you what to do.

@PolarCub

thank you ! I should have said my Mum has Covid too (although she is feeling ok, just a heavy cold feeling) and is in isolation. So going physically somewhere is out. Mum went to pay via her online banking, but with the new security measures, they want the exact name of the account it's going to, and the sort code - again we don't have that info - we don't have the physical bills!

Credit card payments are classed as ‘bill payments’. You and every one else with that type of card pay into one holding account, then it’s sorted by the reference number to your account.

They will have the sort code and account number of this holding account on the banks database.

All you need to do is phone your mums bank or your bank and say I’d like to pay make a bill payment to a capital one credit card. Tell them the account number (either from the bill or the physical card) and they will be able to make the payment.

"actually using the bereavement line is a good idea because you can speak to a real person quickly and you can explain "he's not dead BUT"

BUT???!!

But fucking what??!!

Please leave that for those who HAVE to use it!!

@Marmite27
Credit card payments are classed as ‘bill payments’. You and every one else with that type of card pay into one holding account, then it’s sorted by the reference number to your account.

They will have the sort code and account number of this holding account on the banks database.

All you need to do is phone your mums bank or your bank and say I’d like to pay make a bill payment to a capital one credit card. Tell them the account number (either from the bill or the physical card) and they will be able to make the payment.

That's useful to know. Thank you for a good explanation

If his finances are locked down so tightly you can't make a payment, when he's better it might be time to have the power of attorney conversation.

Or at very least, him put together a folder of stuff somewhere to sort immediate affairs if similar should happen in the future.

I did my parents a file which I secretly called - when i die 😂
So it has all of their bank accounts credit card details
Pensions
National Insurance number
Passwords for emails accounts
Life insurance policies
Funeral policies
Details for where their will is stored
Passwords for Netflix - Virgin and all those other annoying things
When my mum passed away it made things so much easier having everything in one place
My dad didn’t have to do anything as I had everything in one place 😂
Just need to do one for myself for DH

@Wegobshite

I did my parents a file which I secretly called - when i die 😂 So it has all of their bank accounts credit card details Pensions National Insurance number Passwords for emails accounts Life insurance policies Funeral policies Details for where their will is stored Passwords for Netflix - Virgin and all those other annoying things When my mum passed away it made things so much easier having everything in one place My dad didn’t have to do anything as I had everything in one place 😂 Just need to do one for myself for DH

As well as all the above useful information, getting the details for electric/gas/phone/water suppliers etc saves so much stress for those sorting out the deceased’s affairs. I had to wade through piles of envelopes and papers finding all these sorts of details that you wouldn’t really think about.

Goodness, that must be stressful, OP

Glad to read that the bills are sorted

When you get a bit of head space, I'd encourage you to use a password manager, at work we use https://www.lastpass.com

I've started to use it for home things too and would encourage everyone to use it, to generate new passwords, store those passwords securely with two factor authentication required for access. Once all your passwords are loaded up, you can run a scan to highlight any duplicate passwords and sort those out. There are also 'secure notes' where I keep nhs and National insurance numbers and all those other things.

You can set up emergency access for someone you trust. s was high would have been ideal in this situation.

It's bad enough if one password is ever cracked. The real danger though is when people use the same password over and over again, do that one hacked password gives access to everything

It took a while for me to trust anything to store passwords, now I do I can see how much more secure it is that the 'sheet of paper '

All the best.

When you get a bit of head space, I'd encourage you to use a password manager, at work we use www.lastpass.com

I wouldn’t use Last pass, especially not for banking information. It’s renowned for being easy to hack. Google it and you’ll see loads of tutorials on extracting passwords from it.

Thank you
Yes my Mum and I have discussed that when he's better - power of attorney stuff for both of them!
And that a file of account logins and passwords that we can access (he's put his details in a code, but we don't know how to unlock!). Luckily, he has written in his paper diary when things need to be paid.
We even had a job of getting his computer up and running. The fact that most of the machine (PC) wasn't sitting in the case, isn't unusual, but we didn't know that the power on button, on the case, wasn't connected to anything! He'd put a separate switch, trailing off the motherboard - Can you tell he's a computer engineer!

So to anyone else - if you have an unusual configuration/set up on your computer - TELL someone.

I think a file like that is a really good idea. Not sure I'd give anyone my email password, though.

@PolarCub Hope your father improves soon and that your mother stays ok. Massive sympathies around the security paranoia of the computer engineer - my dad was like that and 5 years after he died we still struggle with the way he set up my mother's laptop because it's really hard to change anything / put anything new on it. But she still got hacked :(

this is why everyone needs to make lasting power of attorney.
and have a way that trusted others can get into their accounts.
glad it's sorted OP.

[quote Pythonesque]@PolarCub Hope your father improves soon and that your mother stays ok. Massive sympathies around the security paranoia of the computer engineer - my dad was like that and 5 years after he died we still struggle with the way he set up my mother's laptop because it's really hard to change anything / put anything new on it. But she still got hacked :([/quote]
Thank you.
Yes a computer engineer complicates things, and yes the security paranoia - Actually it's rubbed off on all of us
I'm sorry that you still have struggles with your Mum's laptop

Thank you all for suggestions for the future and for the well wishes for my parents.
We will investigate (AND put in place) Power of attorney, accessible (and not in code!) account information etc
We'll put in place the above for both my parents and I think I'll do the same for myself - I think we all like to think we are indestructible, whatever age we are.