It's Not So Easy. Social Security, Power of Attorney, and Representative Payee

Everybody says "You have power of attorney...just (this) just (that)." 

Not so easy. For every hole I try to stop up, she can make the same telephone call and do the opposite.

Believe me. I know they mean to be helpful but it takes too much of my time trying to explain why it's not so easy.

But I think I have an idea.

I did a test and so far it has worked with small amounts of money. Will it work fully, when I try it next week, for real?

Do you have power of attorney for an elderly parent? Great. But unless you have guardianship, your elderly parents can, if he or she is clever enough, pick up the phone and undo what you've done to protect him or her. Even if you have PoA, you can't have the social security check auto deposits deposited in a safe bank unless your elderly parent makes the call and that defeats the entire purpose. The SSA doesn't accept PoA: You have to literally have your parent declared incompetent by a physician, file that with Social Security and get a designation which will give you total control... And what if you don't want total control? Or what if you don't want your parent legally declared incompetent? Like I don't. Then you have to figure out how to get the social security money into an account so that your elderly parents won't, under pressure, be able to write out checks and give the money away to some young and healthy person who would rather get fresh green money from his/her grandmother.

And my mother will do anything to do what this person wants, to do what she thinks she needs to do to earn his love, to keep him close to her. Even if it bankrupts her.

Reminds me of a drug addiction. You'll do anything for that drug. Anything.