Financial Abuse of Seniors - "The Grandpa Scam"

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

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The Grandpa Scam, telephone scams that have been costing seniors thousands of dollars...

Calling these scammers a "scourge," Sen. Collins warned Wednesday of the "dangers posed by con artists looking to swindle older Americans out of their life savings."

Last year alone, Americans lost more than $73 million to phone imposter scams, says the FTC – but that number is almost surely a drop in the bucket, since most victims don't report these scams out of fear, distress or embarrassment.

Instances of imposter scams doubled between 2009 and 2013, says the Select Committee on Aging. That is why it seeks better detection of the crimes, more prosecutions, and better consumer safeguards on the part of retailers and phone companies whose products and services are often used during the transactions.

Daniel Marson, director of neuropsychology at University of Alabama-Birmingham and an expert on seniors and their financial decision-making, refers to this relatively new "financial elder exploitation" as a "time bomb," since the number of older Americans will swell in the years ahead.

Consumers Digest reports there are at least five million cases of this financial abuse in the U.S. each year.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101848495?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity
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I think too many current seniors are too polite because that's the era they came from. I hear too many give an explanation when they can't give to a calling charity. I tell them you don't even have to give an explanation. Because by doing that you turned a what should be short phone call into a negotiation. Then the seniors more than likely will give in just to out of fatigue just to end the call. Point is you don't owe anybody anything and the professional phone sales person is used to rejection believe or not so you won't be offending anyone. Just a polite "I'm not interested or won't be giving at this time" then hang up(the quick and abrupt hang up is the key).
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I got into a scam a few years back. I answered my landline phone and was asked if I would please take a survey for a travel site. I was an avid traveler and I assume they preyed upon that information. I said 'Yes'. The next 10-15 questions were innocent enough that I felt OK giving a 'yes' or 'no'.

A few months later I found out I had somehow signed up a another long distance provider, I couldn't remember okaying the transfer. I called the number on the bill and questioned the CS agent. She said she had a recording of my conversation where I had ok'd the service. It played and yes it was my voice replying 'yes' and 'no' to different questions about the service, at the end I was asked if I wanted the service. My recorded answer was 'yes'. I called BS on the recording and said they had edited my answers to the original survey and had dubbed it into their set of questions. They denied it and after getting off the phone I called my state's Attorney General and the Public Service Commission. I found out they had been receiving several calls about that company and my name was added to the complaint string. I called the company back and basically told them to bark at the moon and refused to pay their charges and I told them I had called the GA and PSC and reported them. Never heard nothing back and no more bills came forth.
 

We were scammed last year, but not by telephone.

We have a well system, and the electrical wire that went to it failed. We had the whole place rewired in '99, so we thought, OK we need a new wire. It was a Saturday, and the local eclectic company said it would be a least two weeks before they could even look at it. They did tell us that so-and-so company did a lot of emergency work that they couldn't get to in a timely fashion. They asked us if we wanted them send that company out to us. My 71 y/o hubby who was recovering from his surgery told them yes.

That same day the so-and-so company came out, and replaced 10 feet of wire. The well was up and running in less than an hour. The repairman told my husband he needed to sign off on the paper work needed by him and the local electric company. My hubby was still dealing with the pain meds he had gotten for his post-op surgery pain, so he didn't ask any questions. We then received a bill for over $4,000.

Since my hubby wasn't up to fighting over the phone, I took over that responsibility. I told that company, that in no way could ten feet of wire and placement cost over $4,000. They said they had my hubby 's signature on a contract, so we had to pay them no matter what.

At that time I got ticked off, and told them that they were trying to take advantage of my hubby's age and poor health. I told them if they would give us a reasonable charge we would pay it, but we would not be paying that overly ridiculous charge.

They said they would sue us and ruin our credit.

By this time I had had enough. I told them I had lived most of my life without credit, and I felt that I would do just fine without it in the future.
We haven't paid a dime, and we're not going to. :tapfoot:
 
One thing with phone solicitations. If you have caller ID on phones after they call there are websites you can do a reverse phone number look up and they'll tell you wether it's a telemarketer or not.

Also on things like the wire replacement. Be leary of sub contractors especially if you have to sign paperwork because that amends or changes the verbal contract with the actual company.
 
WhatInThe said:
One thing with phone solicitations. If you have caller ID on phones after they call there are websites you can do a reverse phone number look up and they'll tell you wether it's a telemarketer or not.

Also on things like the wire replacement. Be leary of sub contractors especially if you have to sign paperwork because that amends or changes the verbal contract with the actual company.
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Correct, but in my case the call was sometime in 2001-2002. I normally never answer any call from a number I don't know. My landline service was with Vonage and an internet phone is harder to track or identify. They can mask the id and send you a bogus number on your caller ID. It makes it so we can't even trust numbers that we think we may know. Even answering has the potential to create a mess for you. If you get a voice mail that gives you a number to call back that turns out to be a dead number, they trap your number enabling them to use it to run up foreign calls that are charged higher rates on your cell phone bills. Either way you have to screen your calls carefully and never buy from a cold call or give out your financial information to anyone over the phone. We have solicitor's driving through our park several times a week offering services that sometimes turn out to be scams. A pickup load of questionable gents stopped at my house offering to clean out my gutters, I couldn't see any equipment in the back of their truck and figured they were up to no good.
 
No soliciting is posted on my door and a large sign is posted as you come into the neighborhood. If i ans the phone and a number is not listed and no one says anything for a second or 2' I hang up. I will also block calls
from solicitors that keep calling. I don't give anyone money or info on my phone. No one has ever called and threatened with going to jail, though. I would be laughing as I hung up bc I grew up in the jail. Ha!
 
In UK a solicitor is a member of the legal profession. They can instruct barristers to appear in court, write wills, deal with conveyancing, etc.
son of Perdition's comment made me smile!
however, soliciting can mean the same; although it can also mean a prostitute looking for business...
 
I have a small black and gold No Soliciting sign on my front door, but that doesn't stop everyone coming around trying to sell me a product or service. I was a little annoyed the other day when some guy rang my bell. His first question was 'you like steaks, don't you?'...well, I knew from that second he was selling steaks out of his truck, from who knows where.

I didn't have to say anything, my face said it all. He then nicely asked if I would be interested in buying some nice steaks from him, answer was no and he left. Noticed he was with a buddy who was knocking on other people's doors, and they drove off in a pick-up truck with a locked box in the bed, no sign whatsoever from any company or anything. :rolleyes:

We've been getting a lot of calls from a Medic Alert company, it's a computer thing and you have to press the buttons on the phone to continue with them. I know it's a scam, and we never fall for it. It is annoying though that the same people call over and over, sometimes at 9:30pm. :mad:
 
When our cell rings, and my wife answers it, I'll ask her who it is. She kindly tells me and if it's a "marketing" type call, I'll tell her to hang up. There has been times that she didn't, but would later tell me "should have hung up when you told me to".

Some people call me "hard", but wife and I call me "smart" when it comes to calls like this.
 

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