My daughter can attest to the fact that I truly hate bad service at stores and resteraunts. I do every thing I can to avoid going back to those places where I've been ingnored or treated badly. Which brings me to the point of this post. One of my responsabilities since Mom died is to keep up with her bills and try to close accounts as necessary. On Oct. 25, I paid Mom's Discover card bill in full. On Oct. 30, I recieved a letter from a debt collection agency informing me that they had been hired by Discover to collect Mom's outstanding debt. When I called the company Patrick, the gentleman I spoke with, informed me that when an account holder dies Discover immediately turns over the account for collection. He told me that they had received my payment and there was no outstanding debt. Now here's the kicker, the bill wasn't due until Nov. 12. It was not that the payment was late or a great amount of money. It was simply that Mom had died, so they turned over the account for collection. I work for one of the largest corporations on the planet and even I cannot imagine what kind of heartless bureaucrat could devise such a policy! With all the stress of dealing with some one passing, the last thing anyone needs is a collection agency knocking on the door. I don't fault the agency or Patrick, their representative, for doing their job. Even he admitted that someone should have caught the fact that the bill had been paid and no letter should have been sent. I DO fault Discover Card for a truly horrendous policy. If I had their card I would close the account immediately. As it stands, I will never do business with them.

Thanks for letting me rant. Mom used to have to listen to this kind of stuff from me all the time.