ALLISON Steedman of Durban relates very well to the story of Welsh widow Maria Raybould, who resorted to taking her late husband’s ashes into a cellphone shop in a desperate bid to convince them to cancel his contract.
“I feel her pain,” says Steedman, whose sister, Wendy, was killed in March.
A low point was dealing with First National Bank, Steedman says.
First the bank sent an SMS to her sister’s cellphone number, saying that her accidental death policy was being suspended due to non-payment.
When she complained to a call centre agent saying a claim had been submitted, he was dismissive and rude, she says.
It got worse. That agent’s team leader later sent an e-mail – to her late sister’s address – beginning, “I hope this finds you well”.
She did apologise profusely for the call centre agent’s bad handling of Steedman’s call, at least, although sadly to the wrong person.
“How on earth does someone, when dealing with a complaint regarding a death claim, e-mail the deceased?” Steedman asks.
Responding, the bank’s head of customer value management, Rya-Mari Muller, said: “Once notification is received, from the next-of-kin, confirming the client’s passing, the bank puts an immediate hold on the account.
“FNB requires the death certificate as well as instruction from the executor of the estate, before we are able to follow due process. To date we have not received the required documentation,” she said.
“We understand this is a difficult time for any family and as such we will review our communication process going forward.”
Steedman says a friend of hers threatened to throw her husband’s ashes into a fitness centre’s pool when they were still harassing her for payment of his fees a year after his death.
The thing is, contrary to what many assume, contracts don’t die when the person who took them out does.
Technically, any amount still owing on the contract can be claimed from the deceased’s estate. In the case of cellphone contracts, next-of-kin are generally given several options.
Cell C’s Karin Fourie said: “They can cancel the account and return the device to Cell C; transfer the ownership to the next-of-kin, or migrate the line to prepaid and settle the outstanding fees to retain handset.”
Vodacom’s Richard Boorman said the same options applied on that network.
“If they choose to cancel the contract, a claim for the remainder of the contract is submitted against the estate of the deceased. If the executor of the estate can prove that the estate is insolvent or that there would be a shortfall, then the debt is written off.
“We have tried to make the process around cancelling contracts of the deceased as easy as possible to reduce any unnecessary stress,” he said.
With retail accounts, most people – 70% in Edcon’s case – have credit life policies which wipe out any balance owing at the time of death.
But their claim could be denied on the grounds that the account holder committed suicide, the account was in arrears or the claim was submitted more than six months after the account holder’s death.
The Foschini Group’s marketing head Kathryn Sakalis said the company’s insurance, claims, customer services and collections departments share the same infrastructure, “so when a customer passes away, and the company is notified via any of those departments, an indicator is placed on the account which prevents any further collections activities”.
And what if the customer has no credit life policy?
“If there is an estate, then TFG does claim against the estate,” Sakalis said.
“If the next-of-kin claims there is no estate, then they are required to produce a sworn affidavit in this regard.”
The balance is then written off.
Edcon’s Deven Naicker said the company also wrote off the outstanding balance on the account of a deceased customer if the next-of-kin or executor can’t be traced, the estate is insolvent or the account has prescribed.
Steedman’s experience has left her with the feeling that, by and large, big companies’ systems are not synchronised, and that call centre agents are not adequately trained to deal with calls relating to the death of a customer.
“I have experienced this with just about every call centre I have dealt with,” she says, “and as someone who has run call centres for 20 years, I find it very disturbing that so much emphasis is being put on technology and not enough on people.”
She singled out Telkom and Multichoice for “responding rapidly, with sympathy and efficiency”.
Good enough to eat?
MEDICAL professionals and consumer advocates are calling laundry detergent pods “an emerging public health hazard”.
Researchers at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the US have released a study revealing that since 2012 when the pods first came onto that market, US poison control centres have reported that more than 17000 children under the age of six have ingested them, nearly two thirds of them under the age of two.
Their symptoms included vomiting, coughing or choking, eye pain, drowsiness and conjunctivitis. One child died.
“It is not clear that any laundry detergent pods currently available are truly child resistant,” said study author Gary Smith. “A national safety standard is needed to make sure that all pod makers adopt safer packaging and labelling.”
Ariel manufacturer Proctor & Gamble, South Africa told In Your Corner that the company was only aware of “one potential incident” since its “capsules” were launched on the local market last year.
“Nevertheless, P&G has applied the same principles everywhere in the world to help prevent accidental access to capsule packs,” she said.
“They are packaged in an opaque tub, so children cannot see the capsules inside, we’ve made the package harder to open with stronger package closures that need co-ordination of hands to open, and there are cautionary labels, both on the product and in advertising.
“Laundry detergent capsules are the next generation of laundry detergent and are safely used by millions every day, but they are twice as concentrated as a typical liquid detergent and should be stored safely away from small children.”
Contractual red tape that will not the dead rest
“I feel her pain,” says Steedman, whose sister, Wendy, was killed in March.
A low point was dealing with First National Bank, Steedman says.
First the bank sent an SMS to her sister’s cellphone number, saying that her accidental death policy was being suspended due to non-payment.
When she complained to a call centre agent saying a claim had been submitted, he was dismissive and rude, she says.
It got worse. That agent’s team leader later sent an e-mail – to her late sister’s address – beginning, “I hope this finds you well”.
She did apologise profusely for the call centre agent’s bad handling of Steedman’s call, at least, although sadly to the wrong person.
“How on earth does someone, when dealing with a complaint regarding a death claim, e-mail the deceased?” Steedman asks.
Responding, the bank’s head of customer value management, Rya-Mari Muller, said: “Once notification is received, from the next-of-kin, confirming the client’s passing, the bank puts an immediate hold on the account.
“FNB requires the death certificate as well as instruction from the executor of the estate, before we are able to follow due process. To date we have not received the required documentation,” she said.
“We understand this is a difficult time for any family and as such we will review our communication process going forward.”
Steedman says a friend of hers threatened to throw her husband’s ashes into a fitness centre’s pool when they were still harassing her for payment of his fees a year after his death.
The thing is, contrary to what many assume, contracts don’t die when the person who took them out does.
Technically, any amount still owing on the contract can be claimed from the deceased’s estate. In the case of cellphone contracts, next-of-kin are generally given several options.
Cell C’s Karin Fourie said: “They can cancel the account and return the device to Cell C; transfer the ownership to the next-of-kin, or migrate the line to prepaid and settle the outstanding fees to retain handset.”
Vodacom’s Richard Boorman said the same options applied on that network.
“If they choose to cancel the contract, a claim for the remainder of the contract is submitted against the estate of the deceased. If the executor of the estate can prove that the estate is insolvent or that there would be a shortfall, then the debt is written off.
“We have tried to make the process around cancelling contracts of the deceased as easy as possible to reduce any unnecessary stress,” he said.
With retail accounts, most people – 70% in Edcon’s case – have credit life policies which wipe out any balance owing at the time of death.
But their claim could be denied on the grounds that the account holder committed suicide, the account was in arrears or the claim was submitted more than six months after the account holder’s death.
The Foschini Group’s marketing head Kathryn Sakalis said the company’s insurance, claims, customer services and collections departments share the same infrastructure, “so when a customer passes away, and the company is notified via any of those departments, an indicator is placed on the account which prevents any further collections activities”.
And what if the customer has no credit life policy?
“If there is an estate, then TFG does claim against the estate,” Sakalis said.
“If the next-of-kin claims there is no estate, then they are required to produce a sworn affidavit in this regard.”
The balance is then written off.
Edcon’s Deven Naicker said the company also wrote off the outstanding balance on the account of a deceased customer if the next-of-kin or executor can’t be traced, the estate is insolvent or the account has prescribed.
Steedman’s experience has left her with the feeling that, by and large, big companies’ systems are not synchronised, and that call centre agents are not adequately trained to deal with calls relating to the death of a customer.
“I have experienced this with just about every call centre I have dealt with,” she says, “and as someone who has run call centres for 20 years, I find it very disturbing that so much emphasis is being put on technology and not enough on people.”
She singled out Telkom and Multichoice for “responding rapidly, with sympathy and efficiency”.
Good enough to eat?
MEDICAL professionals and consumer advocates are calling laundry detergent pods “an emerging public health hazard”.
Researchers at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the US have released a study revealing that since 2012 when the pods first came onto that market, US poison control centres have reported that more than 17000 children under the age of six have ingested them, nearly two thirds of them under the age of two.
Their symptoms included vomiting, coughing or choking, eye pain, drowsiness and conjunctivitis. One child died.
“It is not clear that any laundry detergent pods currently available are truly child resistant,” said study author Gary Smith. “A national safety standard is needed to make sure that all pod makers adopt safer packaging and labelling.”
Ariel manufacturer Proctor & Gamble, South Africa told In Your Corner that the company was only aware of “one potential incident” since its “capsules” were launched on the local market last year.
“Nevertheless, P&G has applied the same principles everywhere in the world to help prevent accidental access to capsule packs,” she said.
“They are packaged in an opaque tub, so children cannot see the capsules inside, we’ve made the package harder to open with stronger package closures that need co-ordination of hands to open, and there are cautionary labels, both on the product and in advertising.
“Laundry detergent capsules are the next generation of laundry detergent and are safely used by millions every day, but they are twice as concentrated as a typical liquid detergent and should be stored safely away from small children.”
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