My mother is 77 years old with mild dementia. Every single day there is another phone call or mail request for a donation. Today I found another charge to her credit card for supporting a presidental candidate she would NEVER in a million years vote for. I have changed over the mailing address to most of her important bills, but the phone calls and mail just keeps on coming. I cannot get a post ofice box for her. I have limited the amount of cash available to her because the door to door people were getting all of it. I have her on the do not call list but the calls still happen.
DH and I are caring for my sweet mother with vascular dementia, his sweet father with undiagnosed but obviously progressing Alzheimer's and his sweet mother with intact cognitive function but severe heart failure. All in their early 90s.
Let's just say that I can use all the help and information I can get!
These telemarketers are trained to respond to pleas of poverty; they're like tanks, they just keep rolling right over any responses.
Other things people have done: talk like a baby and just keep gurgling and making baby noises, blow whistles, make strange noises, blow a boat horn, and my favorite, which I have yet to do, is play a submarine diving sound...loud, very loudly. But keep your ear protectors by the phone.
Sometime I just pick up the phone and put it on hold and leave it for a while, then eventually hang up.
You're too nice; I'm never polite to telemarketers!
If you aren't feeling uncomfortable with this idea, you might return to sender any solicitations and mark the outside of the envelope deceased or moved left no forwarding address.
Finally, you may want to reevaluate the credit card in your Mom's name. It sounds to me like an accident waiting to happen. Does she really need one or use it legitimately? If not, I would cancel the card. (Then she can give it to whatever solicitors call with out it hurting her!)
As for solicitors, she has so few new people in her life, I try to get her to check the incoming phone number and not answer it if she doesn't know who it is. I tell her she can listen to the message (if they leave one) and she can call them back if she wants to. The door is something else - scary - and she insists on answering it. I feel like putting a sign on the door that says, "warning, communicable disease!" - or "QUARANTINE", but I guess that's a step too far.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. :)
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/stop-junk-mail-174488.htm?cpage=0&post=1&cm=425592&z=1#425592
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