In recent years, the number of scamming incidents involving seniors have risen greatly all over the world. Senior scams are often conducted over mails, telephone, and the Internet along with elaborate schemes.

It’s important for seniors to be prepared and know how to protect themselves from a potential scam. Below is a simple checklist that can help prevent unfortunate fraud incidents happen to your seniors.

Mails

• Buy & install a locking mailbox
• Consider asking someone you trust e.g. a close family member to look after bill payments and mails for you
• Never respond to a sweepstakes letter by sending a check to claim a prize
• Never send any personal information – social security or social insurance number, bank and credit card as account numbers, phone numbers or address – through the mail to anyone who you don’t know, no matter what they’ve offered or promised
• Only send checks to charities that you are familiar with, and that have been checked by an official legit governmental source
• Don’t respond to requests to send a “deposit” to “get started” with a work-at-home offer or a pyramid scheme
• If you continue to receive mails that are obviously scams, take them to your local post office for the Postal Inspector to take action
• Note down the day of arrival of monthly bank statements, credit card statements & pension payments. Also, consider getting those via emails would be safer & more convenient.

Telephone

• Most important rule: people are not always who they say they are. Scammers can even say that they are law enforcement officials who are investigating a crime that involves seniors and require you to give them your personal information. It’s possible for you to be caught off-guard at this point, but always remember: if something happened, police would contact you in person and not over the phone.
• Never give any personal information over the phone. It’s normal for scammers to pose as someone representing a bank or other reputable financial institution to fooled seniors into believing their financial information or credit card has been compromised.
• Never buy anything over the phone from an unfamiliar business. Perform regular check on unusual calls from businesses with your local consumer protection agency or other watchdog groups in your area.
• Never respond to an offer you don’t understand thoroughly.
• It’s not rude to stop or interrupt a caller if he or she is trying to sell you something you don’t want. If you are in that situation, don’t be afraid to use phrases like “I never buy anything over the phone” or “I don't respond to telephone solicitation” and hang up.
• Con artists give out false names, telephone numbers, addresses, and forged business license numbers all the time; thus, when you’re interacting with a salesperson over the phone, try to obtain these info first to verify with officials before engaging in business with them.
• If you have been a victim of telephone fraud in the past, beware of people who call to offer help to help you recover your losses for a fee paid in advance.

For more information on how to protect seniors from scammers, contact us at Home Instead Senior Care Outer East via (03) 9754 4861, or visit ProtectSeniorsFromFraud.com

Thanks for reading through this Blog, I hope you have found it useful. If you require any further assistance please feel free to contact the office.

Kind regards,

Suzanne McLoughlin
Owner of Home Instead Senior Care Outer East

P.S. We provide free Care Consultations and resource guides to support and guide families. Download your free copies from our Aged Care Resources page or Request a Free Information Pack to receive a hard copy.