At a time when seniors should be enjoying retirement, scammers target their hard-earned savings and prey on their vulnerabilities.
“A lot of older adults are lonely. They’re isolated at home. Maybe their friends have moved away or passed away. Their children aren’t close, and they’re lonely,” community engagement director for non-profit Age Well Middle Tennessee, Paula Daigle, told News 2. “So if someone calls, they answer the phone and (scammers) try to befriend them.”
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Lisa's mother is bad about shit like this. It's not that my in-laws are lonely, it's that they're way too trusting. If an email looks official, then by God it must be. At least once every couple weeks, we'll get a call from Sue. "I just got an email saying they're going to shut off our Netflix/Hulu/whatever if we don't pay right now!"
"Did you pay your bill this month?"
"Yes, it's on autopay."
"Ignore the email, Mom."
"But....."
"Ignore the email."
It took a while, but now they call us any time they get an email or phone call that wants any kind of personal or financial information.
Yeah, I got an 80 year old mother who has some wagonburner foundation sending her begging mail at least 3 times a week. She used to donate, regularly but now she's a widow on a fixed income so, the hatchet-packin dog-eatin beggars are just gonna have to make do on the tax dollars they fleece from our government every month. They REFUSE to leave her alone to the point I'm starting to not feel so bad about Sandy creek and Wounded Knee.
ReplyDeleteThat whole 'trusting' thing is a holdover from the halcyon days when everyone left their doors unlocked, the keys in the car and the kids' bikes scattered all over the front lawn. Things that seem inconceivable today. In my hometown, all it took was one black family moving in on the edge of town and everything changed, seemingly overnight.
ReplyDeleteBrokerage firms like Fidelity allow you to designate a "trusted contact" they can call if they suspect you've fallen for a scam. It's too bad banks don't have the same thing. My bank doesn't, anyway. The victim is much more likely to withdraw money from a bank than a brokerage.
ReplyDeleteI thank God my 90 year old Mom never showed the slightest interest in computers. It was hard enough helping her wade thru the BS on Faux Nooz every day when I got home from work. At least she missed the covid scamdemic, Biden and that Emhoff bimbo.
ReplyDelete- WDS
I guess I must be an aging parent. My son writes code for a big credit company and is involved in cybersecurity and I go over all this stuff with him. There are an unbelievable number of scams.
ReplyDeleteA big scam up here in NY is an email or text purportedly from EZ Pass (electronic toll collection) that says your vehicle went through a toll booth without it registering, and you can pay the $3.86 toll by clicking the link below. That takes you to a website that looks official,and after they get your Credit Card info, they go on a wild spending spree.
ReplyDeleteI once got a parking ticket written for my Volkswagen from the City of South Lake Tahoe. It was easily solved when I called and explained that I hadn't been through South Lake Tahoe in over 20 years and that my VW was a KW, as in Kenworth.
DeleteI got a chuckle out of that one.
My ex MIL got scammed for something like $20,000. This was after I was divorced from her daughter, but like you said she was just too trusting. Like the scammers count on, she was too embarrassed to say anything to her kids until later.
ReplyDeletetry purchasing a new car - speaking of scammers, the salesperson, their supervisor, the finance person - the entire setup is a scam
ReplyDeleteI'm a Senior, and I prevent getting scammed by screening my phone calls (if I don't recognize the number I don't pick up - and they NEVER leave a message) and regarding e-mails I'm mighty quick on the 'delete' option.
ReplyDeleteThat's not to say I'm bulletproof. I once had a couple of expensive Door Dash charges show up on my bank statement but those were quickly solved with a call to the bank and the issuance of a new credit card.
Be careful. It's a jungle out there and the scammers are everywhere.
We are old enough to be in the danger zone. I have fortunately convinced my wife that anybody who REALLY wants money will send us a letter by mail, so just ignore all emails and texts. The one we do have a problem with is The National Wildlife Federation. We (seriously) get at least three "begging letters" as the British call them, per week. I finally got through to my wife on that one, by noting that they wouldn't need so much money if they didn't spend so much sending us these pleas for money.
ReplyDeleteAfter doctor visits I get dozens of phone calls offering free pain pills, back and knee braces, diabetes supplies, you name it. Nothing they offer ever has anything to do with reason for Dr. visit. Last scammer argued. "What do you mean you don't need (whatever)? I have your medical records right in front of me." He had the doctors details correct. Tried getting Medicare involved. Medicare is swamped with multimillion dollar scams. My concerns are insignificant to them.
ReplyDeleteMy dad (rip) wasn't 'too trusting'. He just thought he was more clever than the scammers. Pissed us kids off to no end.
ReplyDeleteMy older brother became legal guardian and it was damn near a full time job going thru all the crap my dad had bought into.
(Ex. A web page, and he never used a computer!)
-lg
Another scam to watch out for: fake "Publishers Clearing House" scammers. It is amazing how magical those words are to older folks. I have known THREE older ladies who either GOT scammed out of a lot of money or were saved by friends/relatives from being scammed. Somehow these scammers convince them to pay large sums of money for the delivery of the "prize". No fault of PCH itself.
ReplyDeleteNed
A PCH scammer called me awhile back. When he asked for my address I knew it wasn't on the up and up. Kept the crook on the phone for almost an hour. Eventually he got frustrated enough to hang up. I like to think I saved one or two widows a lot of grief. :-)
Deleteelderly AND us yungns!
ReplyDeletesome fucker almost got my wife for 1500 on a phone scam about arresting me for not showing up for jury duty or some such horseshit! she thought she was saving my ass so she had everything ready to transfer via some cash app but luckily called me first.
all scammers should die!
I did a post about that scam just yesterday.
Deletehttps://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2024/10/people-actually-fall-for-this.html
In Canada most scammers operate out of Quebec. In ye old retard province its only illegal to scam someone in Quebec. If the scammers are going after people in other provinces or the US the quebec cops leave them alone i automatically ignore calls from quebec
DeleteExile1981
I'm 82 so I guess I fit into the "aging & likely to be scammed" category. However, I'm a critical thinking, dementia free (so far) sadistic, manipulative nasty motherfucker who has no use for get rich quick schemes. Ergo, I love to tell anyone who proposes a too good to be true plan to shove it up their mother’s ass.
ReplyDeleteOne trick I've heard is to use Google Translate's speech mode to insult the scammers in their native language. "I bet your mother is ashamed you work for scammers" in Hindi or Tamil gets their attention and usually spins them right up.
DeleteI have a friend in his 50s with a deep voice. He will every now and then, for fun, pick up an unknown number call. After listening to the greeting he speaks in a deep, breathy voice saying, “Okay, that’s the code they told me to wait for. I got the bodies all wrapped in tarps. Where do I bring them?” The caller can’t hang up fast enough.
ReplyDeleteI've been known to interrupt a scammer with "Excuse me for a second," then take the phone and a 22LR pistol out to the back porch, hold the phone near the muzzle, and crank off 3-4 rounds after yelling, "I told you to stay off my fucking property!"
Delete