I Just Want to Pay the Bill!!!!

My mother has memory issues. It is because of these memory issues that last month I took over paying her bills. It is also because of this memory issue that I am having trouble organizing a system to date. She cannot find her previous statements, and I cannot figure out the due dates for certain bills. We did spend a day on the phone calling all her service providers and arranging for the billing address to change to my address.

In the past few days I have become concerned because a bill has not come in this month for Direct Energy, her electric company. All the other bills have come in, but not one for the electric service. So today I decided to call Direct Energy and ask them when the bill is due, is it past due, and if I could please pay it if this was the case. I have to say that the customer service representative was extremely nice. However, I still do not know if the bill is due, past due, how much it is, etc.

It turns out that in order to get that information I need a four digit validation code. It doesn’t matter that I gave them the account number, my mother’s service address, my mailing address, etc. and the Direct Energy representative told me she had the account in front of her on the computer, without the four digit validation code, they can tell me nothing. They did state that they could take my credit card number and pay the bill; they just could not give me the amount of the bill. I politely told them that I was not giving them my credit card number so they could charge an unknown amount to my account.

The customer service rep did give me ideas on how I could figure out the code, such as my mother’s birthday (no); the last four digits of her SSN (no); my father’s birthday (no, but it has more than 4 numbers so we did try combinations); and several other numbers that might have meant something to my mother at the time she set up the account, including my birthday (no).

I have to admit that by this time I was in tears. I have no idea what number was used to set up the validation code for this account. My mother has no idea, and said she doubts she ever will. I cannot access the information without this validation code.

Direct Energy did say I could fax over a Power of Attorney, but my mother does not want them having that information. She says it is none of their business, and until she wants her legal documents released they will not be released. She is still in enough control that I do not use the Power of Attorney; I just pay the bills for her from her account.

I could understand the need for this code if I was trying to change or disconnect her service, but
I just want to pay the bill. I have never run across this situation before.

My mother said she knows how she wants to solve it – just change companies. I told her that she would still owe money to Direct Energy; it was just a secret as to how much.

I could just call and start guessing numbers, my son said there were only some 3,000 possible combinations, so that could take a while, and I doubt very much they would have the patience to put up with that, no matter how nice their customer service representatives are when you call.

I just want to pay the bill.