Will it never end?

So, I'm typing up a new post this morning and get a call from a 1-800 number. Turns out it's my mom's bank.......there is a check trying to clear her checking account they suspect is fraud. Yep, it is. Apparently a counterfeit check someone made to try to cash for $2850.00. Made out with a check# 9872... I actually have 9872 sitting right in front of me! It's the actual check she just wrote me to reimburse me for $60. So, obviously this check#9872, made out to some "Alex LaPierre", is counterfeit. They have marked as fraud, but not after I was on the phone/hold/back on call for probably a good hour. I haven't seen a copy of it, but obviously it won't be in my mom's handwriting. Then I was transferred to another dept. who recommended we freeze my mom's checking. No money can go out and only money can be deposited right now, until we get her a new account opened up. To "freeze" it they put a "hold" transaction on her account of -$888,888.00, so now her balance, when you log in online, shows this huge negative balance in red, when her balance really is about $12k.

Surprisingly, explaining this to her seemed to go ok, she seemed to understand fairly well, though anything like this and she thinks it's the housekeepers or someone getting into her apartment (which I suppose is possible, but most likely isn't how it happened). We'll see tomorrow when she's looking at her bank again and forgets what is going on. At least she doesn't need to write another check until Oct 1st, so we will have it figured out by then, of course. I stayed on hold with the "new accounts" dept waiting to talk to someone there for over a half hour. Finally I had to hang up and get back to work. I'd already been on  the phone over an hour. I am thankful her bank seems so on top of fraud, but so dang tired of dealing with it every time I turn around.

While on hold I got online with her doctor office to set up her annual physical appt. The earliest appt with this dr is showing end of October. Good grief. I decided to call and see if there is an earlier appt. or maybe just see one of the other providers. Since she's feeling ok now (no more rash or other issues, other than memory, which isn't new issue) and due to her age and Covid risk, she suggested a virtual visit, so I made the appt. for that on 9/24 in the morning. I will just take the day off and go in and do that with her from either my phone or ipad. It requires the zoom app. I'm kind of thinking then since it's only about 2 weeks out to then just take her over to my local bank and get her new account set up there. I was planning on doing this soon anyway. I had hoped my bank might be open Sat mornings and do it the next Sat. I am there in less than 2 weeks, but they are only open Mon-Fri so I was going to have to take time off work now anyway, to take care of the banking. Then I can take care of the virtual dr. visit and the banking on same day. Now I'm thinking I'll not open a new BofA checking account (was planning to close it soon anyway) and just open the local account on the 24th. She won't need to write any checks before then and her social security will still deposit into the account tomorrow. Once I open up the new account with new bank, I then get it figured out how to transfer her BofA checking and savings over to this new bank (since I can't write a check to do it..GAH!)

While of course we have no idea how this happened (and most likely never will know) I reiterated to her she sometimes gets these spam phone calls that she talks to and she has to make sure she's not telling them any of her info. Her response always is "well, usually I never do". I said it can't be "usually" it has to be never ever! She knows that and I know she really didn't mean "usually".

ok, back to regularly scheduled programming.....