Suzanne: Welcome everyone to Answers for Elders Radio Network. And we are here with a very important topic for those of us that are either caring for seniors or if you’re a senior. There’s ways in which, sadly, people take advantage of seniors that may be more vulnerable, may have a little bit of Alzheimer’s and dementia, may have a little bit of mobility issues, or just are plain lonely, and they can become real targets for what we call scams. And we’re very honored today to have Faith Marshall, our amazing dementia care advisor that is part of our network and Faith, I am so glad we’re talking about this subject subject today. Welcome to the show.
Faith Marshall: Thank you. This is a subject that’s I’m passionate for, and getting awareness out, since both of my parents had this happen with them, as well as some of my dementia clients.
Suzanne: Yes, and so did my mother. It’s probably reasonable to say that there’s not a family out there that hasn’t either been touched by, or know someone that’s been touched by, someone taking advantage of them. And so what we’d like to do today is talk a little bit about what scams are, how they show up. Faith in your experience, ot could be in everyday life, it could be online, it could be through a phone call. Tell us a little bit about scams in general. How did they show up? And what, you know, what are the indicators are.
Faith Marshall: We used to just worry about email links and phone calls. Now what I’m finding is they’re even monitoring parking lots and watching for the vulnerable elderly that are parking in the handicap spots, so they’re, they’re just out there. It’s like a network of them that communicate with each other and watch out for, like you said, mobility issues and things like that. So there’s email, there’s phone calls, there’s even to the point of solicitation calls on the phone, right where they might be marketing something that’s a donation, that’s a legitimate donation, but they must flag them and just want them and here they are on fixed income, giving their money away.
Suzanne: I remember my mother, when she was in assisted living, and she had very little funds available and somebody saying I’m with the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was, remember back when, when there was the big set of encyclopedias that we all used to buy way back in the 60s, you know, a bookcase they were stored in. And the first thing they said is, do you have grandchildren in school? And so they appealed to her that, you know, they need to get a proper education, and this is something you can give them that lasts a lifetime. And of course, my mother was not internet savvy. And next thing I know there’s like a $700 charge on her credit card. And I just went, what in the world did you do? Oh, mom says, oh, no, I got these for the kids, and I’m going, like mom, they have the Internet, they don’t need that anymore. But it was interesting that, it’s like they figure people, if they get a hold of, you know, a series of phone numbers of people that are in senior living and those are standard phone numbers, what ends up happening oftentimes is they’ll call that number because they know whoever’s living in that apartment is probably more vulnerable. And so that’s something that obviously we have to think about. I always recommend that our seniors learn to use a cell phone, learn to have their own phone number, because those, those are situations where, as much as a senior living tries to safeguard that, if they have a phone in their room, it can happen.
Faith Marshall: Well, my, my first awareness with this with mom and dad was, they went grocery shopping at their local grocery store and parked in the handicap parking. Dad was five years older than mom and not moving very fast and she was driving and they went into the store came out and the clerks even helped them load the groceries in the car. And somebody must have been hanging out in the parking lot watching them, because they only got a block away on a side street, and they got flagged down by this little truck that was urgently pulling up next to them. And the guy got out said that they were leaking brake fluid from the rear tire, and he went back to the rear tire, and then he came up to show my dad who was a mechanic, that he had brake fluid on his hands. So the whole thing was staged. And I still to this day cannot believe what dad let them do because he could fix anything. And they got mom to go with them in the car, go home to get her checkbook. This was, uh, I don’t know, it’s two miles from Lake City to the house and then they took her to the bank, she went into the bank and she withdrew $1,800 cash. They took her back to the car where dad was waiting and promised to follow them home, and then come back and go, go get the parts and come back and fix the car, which of course never happened. The story got to my brother, the police were called and it was reported. Problem now, they knew where they lived, they trusted them to fix these brakes that had nothing wrong with them. And now that they’ve felt vulnerable, they, the fear, the fear anxiety went up. But it was about six months more. And another scenario happened that we can talk about maybe, in the next year.
Suzanne: What you focus on, you attract in your life, and when there’s that kind of fear, it’s like people that are predators, they can kind of sense that and, and they can capitalize on it. My mother was overly trusting. She would give her her debit card to a caregiver that she had, and that caregiver ran up $8,000 worth of charges out of her bank account because, you know, she had the keys to the castle, right? I know that these things happen. They’re devastating when they do, and at the same time, Faith, you know, I, I mean, I’m sure you are aware that this happens a lot. I mean, people come to the door and they say, oh, we can wash your windows? All you have to do is pay us X dollars and we’ll come back tomorrow and they never show up, and those things happen all the time. As we’re talking about different types of scams, if you have a loved one that is older and maybe a little more vulnerable, it’s really, really important that you as the adult child, or the family friend, or whoever it is, help to monitor what they’re doing. Because I think our older adults can be very trusting, they don’t understand to what degree and how sophisticated people are. Like a whole network of people can be working together in cahoots.
Faith Marshall: Well, just like you said, the network knows the demographic of their victim, and talks about Encyclopedia Britannicas, and telephones, and saves a recording, and they go all over the place. But what I found was that if it is reported to the police — many times it is not, about 60% of elders do not report these to the police and that’s what they really need to do in order to have follow-through. So we did report it to the police, and my brother took control of the bank account. He would only put $300 in that checking account that was attached to that debit card. And she started to say, finally, when people would call, oh, that’s too much. I have to ask my son for permission.
Suzanne: That’s important too. It’s that slippery slope that we as family members have to walk because we want to allow our loved ones, that we care about, their dignity and their ability to have their choices. On the other hand, sometimes it’s very difficult, because there are a lot of situations that are overwhelming and they just forget, they will have a nice voice on the phone. They’ll meet this nice young man that comes to the house. If it’s a lonely lady, or something like that, they’ll appeal to that. And, and certainly a lot of times we just go on with life thinking that we’re more streetwise of what’s going on, but our parents may not. So I know that there’s a fraud watch helpline out there. Faith can you share a little bit about AARP and what they have?
Faith Marshall: They have a fraud hotline so that you can report it directly through that hotline. And it goes a lot bigger than the local police department, and they are monitoring that for our seniors and helping the FBI and the Feds figure all this out. It’s a federal crime, so it goes beyond just our state jurisdictions. Just raising that awareness and knowing what to do and who to call helps.
Suzanne: And remember these teams, they’re sophisticated, they can call from other states, different things like that. So I’m going to give all of you the AARP’s Fraud Watch Network Helpline, and that number for every one is (877) 908-3360. Faith, you work with families each and every day with dementia concerns and helping families come together, and I’m sure this is a common topic that you deal with. How do we reach you, my friend?
Faith Marshall: We’ll put a link in the bio here, but dementiafamilycoaching.com. My phone number is (855) 36FAITH.
Suzanne: Faith, wonderful. I love that. And we’re very glad to have you on, and Faith and I are gonna be talking about elder scams here moving forward in this hour, and we’re looking forward to having you back right after this.
