I have explained to her how dangerous it is for her to talk to people she doesn't know. I have given her printouts of stories where elderly people have been taken advantage of. But, she continues to do it. Her memory has gotten really bad, so I know she forgets. And, I also know she misses her friends and is hoping the call is from someone she knows. How do I protect her?
"I did have a serious talk with her the other day... She said I will try harder", yet in your comment you touch on her memory and in your original post you say her memory has gotten really bad. If you mentioned dementia, I missed it, but it sounds like she is in the early stages. Short term memory goes first - my mother was like this and it could be seconds, minutes, hours or a day later, whatever was said/promised would be gone, usually sooner than later, sometimes in the blink of an eye! In the moment, sure, they understand the concern, the urgency and what you are asking, but they don't retain any of that!
If she doesn't get calls daily and you are looking into various ways to block calls, can you at least temporarily forward the calls, until you get something working? I had to do this with mom's mail - temp forward to me so I could get all the billers & addresses to set up bill payments. She was not happy - her only daily "outing" at that point was to get the mail, but it was only for about 1.5 months - she would get non-first-class mail still, and after I was done, no bills.... Fortunately she was not the type to give away to charity scams etc. OR, could you ask everyone to call at specific times, say only in the evening, when there are less of these scam calls? Forward daytime calls, then turn it off (should be able to do this with your phone or online.)
On the flip side, do you have POA and can you take over finances? Freeze her credit reports? If she slips just once and gives out her SS#, the gig is up - close the barn door first, get the horse situated and then open the door again!
Final questions - is she living alone? do you go there every day? are there plans in place for safety and care? If her memory is already this bad, you will need to be more watchful and proactive. The changes to the next level will sneak up on you...
Explain she needs to initiate calls, perhaps one a day to people she want to connect with. Schedule a time to call friends so they are available?
Schedule your daily call to her too!
Of course, sign up on the National Registry to block calls to her #.
Landline? Call you service provider to find out if spam calls can be blocked by the service; if a smartphone, try call for a fee-call-blocking services
Turning the phone ringer off is a last resort.
That system really can't handle this situation. These scammers are spoofing numbers all the time AND are not legit. Even if they weren't spoofing numbers, they wouldn't give a rats patootie whose number was on that list! They would call anyway.
Your comment about responding with yes is valid, but for the most part one shouldn't answer the calls at all. IF it is important, you'll get a voice message (if you have voicemail - many elders still out there might not)!
The bigger problem is the trusting elders and even worse, those with dementia. Not only will they answer all the calls, and perhaps fall for the scams, but telling them not to answer and/or not to say yes is not going to stick with them.
I have read about even somewhat savvy smart people being taken in by some of these spam/robo callers, but it is so sad when they do this to vulnerable trusting people like your dad. The best we can do is ignore the calls, but many elders don't understand all that and those with cognitive issues are easily taken in. :-(
Don't look back - there really isn't much you could have done until the problem reared it's ugly head, and then you did do what you could.
Got it for my Dad and have the landline on silent
He can call anyone from his Grandpad and the approved people can call him.
Best thing on the market since sliced bread!
NO I do not get a kickback from them but I am a satisfied customer!!! : )
These scammers switch numbers like we change our underwear, seriously. No matter how many numbers we block, a bazillion more numbers pop up. It’s so frustrating. They even fake calls so they appear to come from our area code.
I have even received calls from my own number! So am I going to block myself? Hahaha 😂. It’s a joke!
Blocking feature won’t work for robo calls. It works for other purposes very well, just not in this instance. Wish it did though...
Actually, anyone who is seriously trying to contact someone will leave a voicemail, so let voicemail pick up calls.
Let calls go to you and get her in the habit of calling people herself if she wants to talk. Make sure she has an up to date phone book handy of family and friends. Then she isn't waiting on a call, she is doing the calling.
Fortunately she hasn’t lost her skepticism yet! Now if we could just get her to stop calling 911 when she forgets where she is...
I bet my mom have her bank info a half dozen times to scammers. She always realized what she had done after she hung up the phone. She would call the bank and they would close her account and give her a new one. She’d say, I thought it was my routing number I wasn’t allowed to give! She was in her mid 90’s.
If not very many of your mom's friends are no longer living, there are services that make daily calls to seniors just to check in and chat.
Hope this helps you, dear fellow caregiver.
Once my Dad came home, he was in charge of the phone. I got them caller ID and a list of who will NEVER, EVER call you (Aetna, Social Security, etc). If he sees those names come up or if he sees names he does not recognize, let it go to voicemail. Now Verizon has the actual words SPAM show up so that helps a lot.
With mom's hearing issues and memory issues, I think the easiest solution is to set up call forwarding and have ALL calls go to your phone. More than likely most, if not all, calls are crap. How often do her friends call? Does she initiate calls? She would still have a phone and could call her friends, if she is capable. If the friends happen to call and get you, explain the situation and then tell mom you ran into this person and they would like to chat - mom could call them. You could also warn them upfront, so they are aware.
I also agree with the suggestions to freeze credit. I did this years ago for a specific reason, but it is even better now that it is FREE. Because of the reason why I needed to do this (idiot at EC atty office sent my SS via email!), I have alerts on EVERYTHING! So far there has been no issue, but I plan to keep it as is! Most elders won't need to have their credit accessed for any reason, so freezing it would likely be a one-and-done. Taking a credit card away might be wise, providing them with a debit card that requires fill-up and is kept at a low balance. Taking SS card might work for some, but even with dementia, SS # is a long-term memory. Mom could still spew her # from memory despite dementia. Remember back in the day it was needed for just about anything you did? I even have my son's memorized because I had to use it every time I had to pay this tuition. It is nice that Medicare changed to a random number, removing it from access there, but the SS # is more important.
I would contact her phone service provider and ask for any call-blocking AND to have all calls forwarded to your phone (the blocking might reduce the number of calls you get!) Regardless of robo/spam calls being made "illegal", until they find a way to really stop it, it will continue!
When my LO started having trouble with financial things, I didn't realize the extent of it. I knew that she divulged way too much information to store clerks about her bank accounts, like how much was in them. Then, she started chatting with people in parking lots who asked her for cash. She could not resist their pleas, which was dangerous.
THEN, one day she called me in a panic and said that she had really made a mistake. She had let TWO complete strangers into her home and gave them her ss#, bank account info, driver license, date of birth, bank card no., etc. AND signed a contract for a home security system! I immediately went to work to confirm their identity and they were legit, but, what if they had not been? They could have wiped out her assets or harmed her. At that point, I knew that she was not able to resist exploitation. At some point, they are not able to handle situations like that.
I was unable to ever convince her that these were not friends, they were people trying to get money from her. Sadly, she often made donations that she really shouldn't have. Any time I tried to tell her otherwise, she shut me down.
I finally got tired of beating my head against the wall. It really was her money and I had to allow her to talk to people that weren't thinking of her best interests.