Making arrangements after the death of a loved one can be a nightmare. Each person has dozens of logins, accounts, subscriptions, and more that need to be addressed -- and all of this has to be handled while a family is in grief. It's a lot of mental and emotional work.
So when the membership-based grocery giant Costco (COST) -) found a way to lighten one family's load, it made a big difference. According to a Redditor on the r/Costco forum, after the passing of their mother-in-law, her credit card account started collecting a balance. But when the family called to pay it off, the agent over the phone was having none of it.
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"My beloved [mother-in-law] passed in May. We both loved Costco," the post reads. "She had a Costco credit card. The payment was overdue, [and] sometime after she passed[...] we figured it out and called to pay it off."
"We apologized to the person on the phone for the late payment and explained the situation," the story continues. "[The representative] immediately refused any payment[...] closed the card[,] and cleared the balance."
The representative even went so far as to refund the fees. "[The representative] then sent my [father-in-law a] check for her annual cash back rewards."
The poster and their family were all very grateful. "I thought that was nice of them," they wrote to other Redditors. "They didn’t ask for any proof or anything. They just treated us like humans and wrote off a few hundred bucks without us even asking."
Costco actually hands off its card services to Citi Bank (C) -). A Citi representative confirmed that sensitivity is a part of the company's training.
"Citi's aim is to provide our clients and their loved ones with support as they navigate the death of someone close to them," read an email response to TheStreet's inquiry. "Citi has created a specialized Estate Services unit of dedicated agents that are specially trained to best handle these sensitive calls, including any rewards that were earned on the account."
For more information, estate representatives can check out the bank's policy here.
