STUDIO - A WARNING!

One of the things that my mother used to say to me was "You think that I'm stupid, but I'm NOT stupid…" (it was sometimes that sort of relationship) and, do you know, on the whole, she genuinely wasn't.

She was sometimes, however, hopelessly naive, especially when it came to matters of trust - I remember a distinctly unpleasant experience she had with a removals company once which she'd hired specifically because of the "Christian Fish" logo in their advert - and the internet, because, for want of a better word, in her later years she became something of a "silver surfer…"

Which brings us to a company called STUDIO which has become the bane of my life over the course of the past twelve months.

For her last Christmas alive, back in 2012, my mother ordered some Christmas cards from this company and, as far as we can work out, paid for them, used them, and sent them to many of her friends. However, at some point in the process, it seems that she also chose to sign up for a deal with one of their "sister companies" by which, for a monthly fee, and playing upon her rather optimistic nature, she would be entered into several competitions, thus saving her the bother of filling in the postcards herself.

So far, so interesting.

Shortly after Christmas, as was chronicled extensively in these very pages, my mother was admitted into hospital for the first of the several long stays - punctuated by relatively short periods of living at home - which led up to her death in October.

This was a period in which she was unable and, to a certain extent, incapable of using the internet very well, but when she went home, she checked her messages and so on, and all appeared to be going along swimmingly.

There was a point in April where she was unconscious for several days and we genuinely thought that the end was near, and this was the point at which I first became aware of the company in question. Prior to this, mum had still been dealing pretty much with her own mail, whilst having a rather alarming tendency to just rip up anything that she felt had been sufficiently dealt with. (This has since caused certain problems in the matter of dealing with her Estate, but that's a whole other story…)

Anyway, with my mother seemingly at death's door, I decided to check her mail, and I found the first red demand from this card company because, it transpired, none of the monthly nine pound fees had been paid since she'd first been hospitalised.

A few days of trying to sort this problem out followed although we tended to hit a brick wall whenever we tried to find out what the size of the debt actually was, and whether we could close down the account, because neither my sister nor I was the "account holder…"

Now, you ought to bear in mind here that the "account holder" was, at the time, unconscious and looking like she was unlikely to recover, and when we attempted to contact the company with a registered letter explaining the situation, they refused to sign for anything and the letter was returned unopened. We attempted several times to telephone and speak to supervisors, only to be told that they either did not exist, or if they did, they did not have names which could be given to us.

After a month of this, I decided to just ring up and pay the buggers, just to shut them up, and, surprise, surprise, I found that they were perfectly willing to talk to me about taking payment details, but still wouldn't close the account unless the "account holder" spoke to them, although they rather grudgingly told us that they would "suspend" the account for a while.

Interestingly, I have never received a receipt for or acknowledgement of that payment, so that's an example of their customer service for you.

Moving on a few months, my mother recovered a little and went into respite care for a while, in a room containing neither electrical sockets nor a telephone, which made things a little tricky for a time when it came to communicating with the outside world. My sister tried once more to get her to communicate with this company, but she was going through a rather awkward "Can't be bothered" phase and so that came to nothing.

After this, following a brief period of time at home, my mother boomeranged back and forth between hospital and home until her last stay in hospital which turned out as you all know it did, and our priorities both then and since were not really focussed on some bloody little mail order company.

Incidentally, during her last stay at home, she updated all of her computer passwords, failed to write any of them down, and then forgot them. This, as you can imagine, really didn't help with things as they eventually turned out.

In January, I finally got around to going through the mountains of junk mail which had accumulated at mum's flat and filled up various pillar boxes with unopened catalogues now marked with "DECEASED - RETURN TO SENDER" using a bold, black Sharpie we bought specifically for that purpose.

This week, another letter arrived at the flat addressed to the Executors and offering the most insincere condolences whilst thanking us for our communication (presumably one of those returned envelopes) and requesting a death certificate that they could pass on to their accounts department.

Now, I'm fully aware that certain official bodies have needed to see such a thing, but some piss-ant little mail order company…?

Please...

Anyway, because I really, really don't want to get on their mailing list, I rather cleverly (I thought) photocopied their letter and returned it along with a death certificate and a stamped addressed envelope, addressed to the flat rather than to my home address, and was rather hoping that this would mean an end to it.

But, of course, they are far more clever than that, because I forgot that the certificate itself bears my home address upon it anyway and am now expecting another demand for back-payment which will, inevitably, no doubt be far larger than anyone should rightfully expect it to be, and piss me off something chronic until I decide to just pay the buggers off to get them to leave me alone.

Which is, of course, exactly what they rely upon.

So, what precisely is the purpose of telling you this tale of woe…?

Well, just be very careful that you are aware of the companies that your elderly relatives might sign up to and, for God's sake, make sure you know all of their passwords…