Post Office Telecoms uncaring towards Cancer patient

dave67866

Phoned up to cancel my mum’s account after she had been in hospital for 5 months following a brain cancer operation.
First spoke to an operator "Jack" who then called alleged Supervisor - "Shaun Brooks". He wouldn’t make any changes to the £37 a month account (that hasn’t been used for 5 months) until he spoke to a cancer doctor at the hospital.
Shaun said that this is due to Ofcom rules and the Data Protection Act that the next of kin cannot make changes but a busy doctor needs to take time out of treating desperately ill patients to speak to this customer service representative at the Post Office and discuss a phone bill.
Disgusting. I only wanted to reduce the services that Mum has but I have to go through the legal process of getting power of Attorney and I will cancel her phone and home insurance that are both with the post office.

mije1983

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear about your mum.

I do have to say the PO are in the right here I'm afraid. They will only speak to the account holder (unless they have been authorised previously to talk to someone else) to make sure any changes are genuine. While it may seem what they are doing in 'uncaring', it is what they have to do to protect their customer from fraudsters etc.

Can you get a letter from the doctor to say you mum isn't in a position to communicate with them at the moment?

Hope you can resolve this without too much more added stress to you.