Am searching for advice. Don't know if it is time to place my elderly mother into assisted living. She has been living independently and does not want to leave her "home" and I understand that, but I am working full-time and cannot be with her 24 hours a day. She fell for the Grandparent scam last week and the Medicare (we need your checking account number to send you money) scam, approximately a year ago. I headed off the Medicare scam by getting to the bank in time to cancel checking account, however she wired $1,800 to Lima Peru, where supposedly one of her granddaughter was in trouble, without calling me or my niece's mother to verify...she got in the car, drove to the bank, drove to grocery store and wired the money without consulting anyone. She has other medical issues that so far have not made it appear necessary for her to need 24 hour care in regard to her health. Just would like to hear some advice as to what to do about this without trying to declare her incompetent, which she really is not. Want to help her keep her dignity, but also keep her safe. Please help!
Even if she's always been this impulsive, you may be able to curtail some of her "decisions" if you can control her credit cards and bank account.
What I'm thinking is that if she's competent, she may regret her actions and understand that she needs some help with money management. If she doesn't understand the risks she took, then she needs a neurological workup.
Good luck. It's always tough to take away independence and adult children shouldn't be in too big of a hurry to do that. Still, where there are signs of cognitive deterioration, sometimes intervention is necessary.
Carol
If it is a friend's number I forward the call to her and she thinks it rings straight to her. An unknown number I answer and take care of it. Then if it is a sales call or a scam I then that number to a block list on Google.
It sounds like I am policing everything she does but I was in a predicament before like janelouise and had an elderly family member fall for some of these scams. Once wired the money is gone.
However if you think she needs more supervision an assisted living facility would provide it, provided you could get her to go along with it. Get her an unlisted phone number when/if she moves.
My dad was very competent and was scammed out of $60,000. We could never pin down exactly where it went as he refused to discuss it, we just knew it was gone. I know he was scammed out of that money. When he lived with me he'd answer the phone and I'd hear him begin to give out his private information and I'd leap up from whatever I was doing and snatch the phone out of his hand, demanding to know with whom I was speaking. But unless I was home 24/7 I was unable to keep him from the phone all the time. And I had to put up a NO SOLICITORS sign at the front door.
Our elderly parents scrimp and save for years and years and then they hand their money over to these jackals. I don't get it. I begged my dad to not answer the phone but if it rang he would answer it. If I wasn't going to be home I'd let it go dead and made sure that he had his cell phone with him in the house. And if I was doing something at home where I couldn't get the phone if it rang I would let it go dead then too.
But in assisted living what's to stop your mom from doing the same thing again? If she needs more care AL would be perfect but don't move her to keep her away from scam artists. They'll find her in assisted living.
There's a "No Call" list you can find with one stroke on the internet, you can place your mom on that but it's not very effective. However, every little thing helps.
How about taking your mom's check book away from her? Taking over her finances yourself? Don't do is as punishment but in the spirit of wanting to help make her life easier. Someone needs to tighten up her finances so she won't be able to wire money to God-only-knows-where. And now that she has wired that money she's on some list somewhere and whoever got her to do that may come at her again. They now know she's vulnerable.
Do some research on assisted living and then have a talk with your mom. See how she feels about it. She may dig in her heels and refuse in which case you can only take precautions against her getting into trouble with scams again. Maybe think about hiring a caregiver who can watch out for her and help her a few hours a day.
Nanny (my grandma) has fallen prey to a couple of Medicare-related scams. One was authorizing a company to send their brand of blood glucose monitor, test strips and other diabetic testing supplies. They billed Medicare at a ridiculous rate (more than double what we had been paying for OneTouch-brand supplies) and they sent them automatically every 10 weeks or so for almost a year. I had to raise H3LL with Medicare for almost six months before they finally launched a fraud investigation. Ultimately, they back-charged over $4,000 to the company and they went out of business a few months later!
She gave them her Medicare number when the originally called and that’s what started it all. She also gave it to another person who called claiming to be from her doctor’s office. They tried to use the use the Medicare ID number as a SSN to open credit card and loan accounts! Luckily, her Medicare ID is my deceased grandfather’s SSN and not hers. His credit bureau and SSN both have a death flag and at least one person who tried using his SSN was arrested in Florida (we’re in Georgia).
Her ID, Medicare card, Secondary Insurance card, Social Security Card and any other identifying info is now kept in a lockbox that only I can open!
I have a caller ID display that I keep on in my pocket or on my desk when I’m at home so I can monitor all incoming calls and intercept any suspicious or ‘unknown’ callers. Someone is always with her whenever I’m not home, but I still forward all incoming calls to my cell phone so there’s no chance of another scammer making contact with her!
We live in a semi-rural gated community, but every once in a while someone manages to sneak in and they know which homes belong to elderly people. It pisses me off that there’s enough info in public records for them to figure out where to strike! The last time one showed up here, I called the armed security guard on duty and made the jerk stay here until he arrived to get him, then he delivered him to the sheriff deputy waiting at the gate house! (I won’t say exactly how I ‘made’ him stay put, but we all have guns here in North Georgia).
If your mom isn't making bad decisions at home (using the stove, leaving water running, wandering off, etc) and she can still take care of herself, you could put off looking at ALs, but I'd do some looking on my own so I'd be ready when a crisis hits and you have just days to find a facility and she's being discharged from a hospital.
Also, if she lived at an AL now she wouldn't be entirely protected from phone scams, but she'd have the distraction of a social life and the company of others to use as sounding boards - maybe wouldn't be as likely to fall prey to them. Remember, she was in charge all your life. You may not be the first person she thinks of when she wants advice on financial matters.
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