Ailing Mother with Credit Card Debt
I have an 87 year old mom who's health is slowly deteriorating for the worse. She is currently at the Chronic Care facility in Etobicoke. Although she's no longer aware of it and has no understanding of what she's facing, the current problem that she finds herself in is that the collection agency of Capital One MasterCard is threatening to take court action in getting my mom to pay up her MasterCard loan which is around 7,000 dollars. The amount of the MC load was originally $5,000 but because of her failure to keep up with her monthly payments the loan itself eventually ballooned to around $7,000 brought on by interest rates overtime. Her failure to pay was a result of a number of health misfortunes that started with Strokes, fracture pelvis, more mini-strokes, failing kidneys, possibly diagnosed lung cancer, not to mention dementia.
She is currently on old age pension, both Federal and Provincial and that is the only one she's got. My sister was forced to take possession of her bank account after we realized that my mom can no longer do anything, With only some very minor bills including her life insurance, most of her money now goes towards the Chronic Care facility and has no extra money left to pay towards her MasterCard loan. I've also tried to assist her by sending MasterCard a payment of $50.00 each month but they're now saying that $50.00 is not enough. She's been bedridden for the last 2 years now and is being sustained nutritionally by way of a feeding tube. The collection agency of Capital One Master Card has threatened to bring her to court if the loan doesn't get settled. They are now harassing my sister. To date, the collection agency has informed my sister that if payments can be promptly made for around $4,000 Capital One is willing to face the other way around. My mother doesn't have that kind of money and neither do we. I would like to know what's our best option at this point. Unfortunately, none of us was able to get her a POA prior to her poor health.
Ailing Mother being sued by Collection Agency
Good Folks from Ask Me Helpdesk,
First of all, Happy Holidays from the staff and members of this very valuable and informant Ask Me Helpdesk website.
Once again, I've come to ask for your expertise. In August of this year, I had posted this question [URL="https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/seniors/ailing-mother-credit-card-debt-502587.html"] and got some good advice from the likes of excon; ScottGem and Jake2008. On ScottGem's suggestion, I did exactly what he's suggested by sending the collection agency a cease and desist letter. I'd made the letter to look like it it was written by her. I'd asked her to mail this out and each of us kept a copy of this letter. 4 months later, my sister have recently received what looks like a court summon letter which I have not seen nor read it at this point. There are no other member of the family being named on the summon other than my mom.
My next questions are:
1. Other than having a proof of my mom's clear outline of her current deteriorating medical conditions send to the court, what other viable options do we have?
2. Does it still make sense for my mom to file bankruptcy at this point but who can file bankruptcy on her behalf if she's got no POA?
3. Are they going to require my mom to show up in court even though the Chronic Care facility can prove that she is bedridden and incapable to attend in person?
Once more, I would appreciate any advice or suggestions from any expert members on this community.