At the Garden he had used it to try to call for taxis. At some point I had found odd messages he had left for my mom at their house. It must have been when she was in rehab for the second time. There were two; both were on the same day. He wanted to know how she was doing could she call him. In the second he had sounded impatient.
I had not taken the phone because while he and mom were at different facilities it had been useful for him to have a phone. I could call him when I was on my way and he could walk out to me. I could call him and see how he was doing.
I had asked both Alexa and the facility staff about the cell phone. They, like me, understood both the problematic side to the phone and the positive value of his having it.
Until the washing incident, I had left it with him. But I decided this was a sign to close out the account. I hoped that since I no longer had to transport him to see mom there would be no need for the phone.
Early in the fall when I worked on the cable bill, I had called AT&T and had a fairly straightforward call and had mom's phone which she had not used in years removed from the bill. However, the person had not responded to my request to switch their account to the Senior Rate AT&T advertises. And she had a hard time finding the account at all. Near as I can tell they had had cell phones since around the year 2000 and the phones they were using were the original flip phones they were given.
So I expected that I'd have another nice chat and wrap up Dad's phone service.
Nope.
The gentleman I got this time was very uncooperative. I didn't have the magic code and I told him I doubted my Dad would know it either, after all the account was two decades old. But he wanted me to email the POA to a special email for that. After two days I should hear back.
This step mostly worked okay. I got the return email, but it told me I had to go into an office.
I did so on a Friday morning only to find that the office still had to call someone, somewhere and verify my email. Oh joy! The someone somewhere had a computer that was down. I could come back in a few hours.
A few days later I walked into another office, I was in the door at opening, but several people were ahead of me.
When my turn came, I got to deal first with one lady and then with a woman who I assumed based on the interaction, her boss. Neither of them had any idea what to make of my POA and the account was still hard to find. Then after more than an hour of investigating, I was told that the account could be canceled, but only by the branch manager who wasn't there.
On the plus I was told that I could call him that afternoon, and I was given his card. So I waited again and called. To be honest, I wasn't sure he had any idea who I was or why I was calling. I had decided that we had paid our last bill and I had by now a long chain of fairly well documented evidence of how many hoops they put me through, more than people who gave me access to thousands of dollars of my parent's money. So after I hung up, I texted him back and thanked him for closing my Dad's account. I saved a screenshot to my folder. I was prepared for failure.
Thankfully the branch manager apparently did have more clues than I heard on the phone and we received no more bills.
But I will say this: I will never deal with AT&T again!
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