Past Due

UPDATE, December 7, 2:39pm: After posting the original "Past Due" story on my blog (below), I received a response from a customer service representative (CSR) from Reader's Digest. Through email, this individual explained that Mom had enrolled in the Continuous Renewal Service four years ago. The CSR apologized for any inconvenience and cancelled the account and waived the money owed without hesitation. I am very grateful and somewhat amazed by this unexpected, yet greatly appreciated gesture on the part of this kind and helpful person. Thank you Day Anne!

ORIGINAL POST: I received a collection notice from Reader's Digest today that was addressed to my mother, who has been dead for almost exactly one full year now, informing her that her subscription renewal balance is eight months past due. Does that mean she renewed her subscription four months after she died? According to Reader's Digest, yes. I have received several of these notices from the magazine publisher over the months since Mom's passing. I suppose I could have alerted them long ago that they stood no chance to collect, but the tact they took in trying to extract money from a dead woman pissed me off. So now we play.

It started shortly after Mom died. Reader's Digest automatically renewed her subscription, since they had not received a notice to cancel (In my experience, dead people usually can't be depended upon for picking up a phone or mailing a letter), and demanded payment. Each month I've received an "overdue" notice or a "we'll cancel your coveted subscription if you don't pay up" notice along with her other forwarded mail. Eventually, they stopped sending the magazine, yet have continued to try to collect the amount for a full year's subscription, despite having sent only two or three issues that were neither asked for nor read by the addressee (Did I mention she was dead?). The tone of subsequent statements became increasingly hostile and I resolved to jerk the chains of the idiots in the collections office for as long as they were willing to dangle them in front of me by never telling them that their delinquent subscriber has gone on to a better place (where magazines, Diet Pepsi, and Little Debbie Fudge Rounds are very likely free).

Today's notice took the cake. In gigantic bold letters at the top of the page it reads "OVERDUE BILL". Below those menacing words reads, "Subscription status: PAST DUE." Below that, le piece de resistance, "Previous attempts to collect: IGNORED BY Donna Keller." Don't you just hate it when dead people ignore you? I know I do. Do they think they're better than us? I mean honestly, the nerve of some of these corpses! Who do they think they are anyway? Do they think they're too good to stuff a check into an envelope (with perhaps a brief note of explanation- if not an apology) and mail it to the world's most beloved periodical ever to be read exclusively in bathrooms? I think somebody needs to take these stiffs down a notch if you ask me. At any rate, the letter goes on to say, "To change the status of your subscription, we must hear from you at once." Well, let me tell you, if they hear from my mother before I do, I'm gonna be pretty mad- especially if she doesn't call me or stop by or buy me something pretty or explain where she's been for the past year. Dead people. Can't live with 'em...