Catherine Pierce has been a Telstra customer for more than 38 years and said she never missed a bill payment.

But problems emerged when it came to modifying account details due to her husband’s dementia.

Both of the couple’s names are on the account, but Alan Pierce was down as the primary account holder.

“I was told they couldn’t discuss it because it was not my account, Mrs Pierce said, who eventually found out the process couldn’t be done over the phone.

Mr Pierce, 78, was in hospital four times before Easter, then another three more times since.

“I would tell my husband to get something off the kitchen bench and he wouldn’t understand,” 71-year-old Mrs Pierce said.

“How can he deal with managing our bills?”

Mrs Pierce took her power of attorney to one of the Telstra shops in Wagga to try to sort out the problem.

“I was made to call the credit line to get a credit check,” Mrs Pierce said, adding that her credit rating was excellent – I felt insulted.”

The only way for the married couple to move on was for Mrs Pierce to close the account and open a new one under her name only.

To add to the saga, she was slugged extra for a bond for the new account.

Mrs Pierce said she wasn’t paying the bond, and Telstra took the extra charge off her bill.

“I told them I’m not paying it and they can take me to court,” she said.

“(Telstra) had no trouble receiving my payments.

“After nearly 50 years of marriage (Telstra) still didn’t trust me to access the account.”

A Telstra spokesman said the telecommunications company took client privacy seriously.

“We take the privacy of our customers and the integrity of their accounts seriously and have systems and checks in place to ensure they are protected,” he said. “For this reason, there can be a number of steps involved in an account transfer process.

“We are sorry this has been an inconvenience for the customer, however, it is important we maintain our high standards on privacy.”