Widow takes her husband's ashes to T-Mobile to prove his death

A woman brought her husband's ashes in to a T-Mobile store to prove that he was dead. Collections letters still came after the the shop had said they would close the bill.

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Businesses went into the world of billing automation because it just makes things easier. It saves a lot of time and costs a lot less money than hiring whole telephone call centers and staff to do things like stuff envelopes, manually manage bills, and answer recurrent questions like, “When is my bill due?” and “How much do I owe?” We’ve come a long way, baby. Automation just works and saves some businesses hundreds of hours of time and tens of thousands of dollars.

But along with automation's boons, there are also some challenges that cause quite a bit of frustration for payees or even the surviving spouses of former, (spelled D-E-A-D) payees. One woman, widow Maria Raybould, can attest to this. In order to prove her case that her husband had passed, she literally had to take in her husband’s ashes,reported The Telegraph, Nov. 16. But even upon doing so, she still received threatening mail on the matter.

T-Mobile was adamant in collections on a contract from one David Raybould. He wasn’t using his phone, however. The man had passed away after a long fight against cancer and of course was unable to pay his bill.

His widow, Maria Raybould, was left behind to receive the harassment as a result. T-Mobile had sent out the collectors and bailiffs to forcefully collect on the unpaid bills or a cancellation fee after already having proven the death of her husband.

The Rayboulds’ son had called T-Mobile the day after Mr. Raybould had died to try to cancel the contract. It was something that couldn’t be done over the phone. T-Mobile needed to see a death certificate. Fair enough.

Maria Raybould went directly to a T-Mobile shop to show them all the proof she had concerning her husband’s death. She brought the death certificate and more. Funeral bills, an urn of ashes and a letter from the crematorium were also in tow.

But the mobile phone company still would not cancel the contract. Poor Maria lost it. “I went outside and had a panic attack,” she said. And while the young woman at the shop had told her they were going to stop the contract, letters still came that further collections actions were going to be carried out.

Of course, Maria was distraught. “How dare they put me and my sons through this after all we have been through already,” she said.

T-Mobile has since canceled the contract and apologized. The whole thing was apparently a mix-up due to a delay in the company’s billing automation system. Despite the cancellation having gone through, letters had already been in queue and had been sent.

“We apologise to Mrs Raybould for any distress caused at this difficult time. We can confirm that the account has been closed and the balance cleared," said one T-Mobile spokesman.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com