I'm PoA for an elderly relative. She is a long term RBS customer and her cognition is declining rapidly. I feel like I'm constantly fighting the bank.
It's just been one fuck up after another.
At Christmas she wrote a random cheque to a carer (?? under duress) and I requested that no more cheque books be issued.
I had a long chat with an accessibility officer about her needs and was explicit that she needed access to money as she still manages to get out and needs to pay for groceries, shopping, activities and transport but the I wanted to limit her risks.
RBS don't offer a prepaid card for adults (they have Go henry for kids) so the best option seemed to be to simply limit the money in her current account and to facilitate this I battled to get a savings account opened (as a PoA this all had to be done by phone - no online option available).
I then spent months trying to get her current account overdraft facility reduced from a four figure sum to £200. This took forever as according to RBS policies PoAs can't "borrow money" despite the fact that I was:
- reducing the borrowing
- specifically have permission in my aunt's PoA documentation to borrow on her behalf.
I had to do this by letter as I'm a PoA so online/ phone wouldn't work and due to the huge branch reorganisations in her home city and the placement of the super branch in head office the branch mail is routinely getting lost and I'd had no response to either of the two letters I'd written. . Therefore I wrote a complaint.
I finally spoke with a complaints team person, who agreed compensation for the time taken and that I could have the £200 overdraft I wanted. But that hasn't gone back on to her account so I think that was also a myth.
Meanwhile my aunts paranoia about not having access to money is worsening so she requested a new cheque book. This was issued despite my conversation with them in December.
I then raised a second complaint about this verbally, once again explaining her ongoing need for money when out and about and haven't heard anything back.
Except this week my aunt's debit card stopped working - when I phoned the bank it had been cancelled.
Oh yes, the complaints team decided that as she doesn't have capacity to manage a cheque book she can't have a debit card either. So they have just made her really unsafe as she has no easy access to her own money. I've had to arrange for cash to be taken to the house. And to hope the she remembers to replenish the supply in her handbag when it runs low.
Then when her new card arrives we need to go and change the pin to one she will remember. The chance of her remembering a new PIN is precisely zero.
I am so cross. She has been a longterm customer and they are making her last few months of independent living so much more risky and creating a huge admin burden for me and the wider family.
Why do people not understand that capacity is spectrum. You can have capacity to decide what to buy in Tesco but not have capacity to pay your carer.
Urgh.