Double standards for seniors at pharmacy?
I am a senior, a “granny” with 18 grandchildren, two greats. I live in a senior community, live on Social Security, and I just received a letter from my hometown pharmacy about a check I wrote for $3.10 co-payment for one of my heart medications that states:
“You are hereby notified that check #…issued by you on 4/15/2008, drawn upon …bank and payable to …pharmacy, has been dishonored. You have five days from the date of this notice to tender payment of the full amount of the check plus a fee of $25.00 to the undersigned at:….
You are further notified that in the event the above amount is timely paid in full, you will not be subject to legal proceedings, civil or criminal. CC: Lake County District Attorney
Jail is looking better and better to me: free room and board, lots of friends, free health care, and I can buff up.
When this pharmacy gave me my bottles of meds a few days ago, they gave me a wrong med. Do I send them a similar letter? I”m lucky I caught it and didn”t take another med for my heart I shouldn”t have.
My check was returned because of fraudulent activity on my account, so my old checking account was closed and a new one opened. That sounds uncomplicated, however, when my social security check came in through direct deposit there was a delay so that every time I withdrew from the ATM at the first of the month, I incurred a $34 charge each time.
At any rate, as a hometown pharmacy, I am ashamed of how seniors are treated in Clearlake. I am disappointed that when my pharmacy made a mistake with my medicine, they did not at any time apologize.
It actually seemed funny to everyone when I asked my neighbor to take me in to return the wrong med and I asked that the check fee be refunded ? which I had paid even though it had not been my mistake at the bank. I asked for the refund when no one apologized and actually laughed. I received the $25.00 refund in a credit toward further meds.
What is wrong with society today? Good manners seem to be dead. We live in an impersonal world with gadgets talking to us on the telephone, computers doing the work of people, and hometown pharmacies willing to press charges against a grandmother for a $3.10 check that she thought was good.
Beverly Owen
Clearlake
