Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Please read if you have someone 'elderly' in your life
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December 10, 2014 at 6:16 pm #816294
Infrequent CommenterMemberHello!
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. I know elderly people have always been targeted by telemarketers but I never knew the depth of it until recently.
An elderly relative of my husband was in transition a few years ago and used our address for her mail. She never lived at our house, nor has she ever used our home phone. In fact, she only knows my husband’s cell phone number.
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However, our land line has been inundated with calls for her ever since she forwarded her mail to our address. The nature and frequency of these calls are sickening: Authoritative, demanding male voices insisting on medical ‘treatments’, ‘charity’ solicitations, etc., etc. At least two calls per day. The automated decline option goes so far as to say “If you want to refuse your doctor’s orders, press 5”. Our relative has not been to a doctor in over a year! These calls are designed to intimidate elderly people. We also get many calls for her husband who has been dead over eight years. Because he was in the military, we get a lot of military-like scam calls, too.
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Did I mention how sickening this is? I am so grateful, though, that because we get her mail her real phone has been relatively free from all this. Sometimes I talk to a live person and confront them about how / why the are calling our number. They always say “she gave us this number.” Baloney! She doesn’t even know this number .. she only knows my husband’s cell number!
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Done ranting .. getting to my point :) If you have an elderly relative and they have a land line, know that their number will be traced and shared with many, many organizations. It is targeted and relentless. I don’t have a solution (maybe a PO Box?), but I’ve become acutely aware of all this and feel I need to pass it on.
December 10, 2014 at 6:34 pm #820018
dhgParticipantI hear ya. We have a 92 yr old grandmother with a live-in aunt and family to look after her. Her hearing is poor so the phone is always very loud. When she answers it, everyone in the room can hear the conversation. When a scammer calls, they shout “hang up the phone!”. I hear this often.
December 10, 2014 at 6:47 pm #820019
pattileaParticipantThank you for sharing this. My mother in law is 92, she trusts everyone. we monitor her finances regularly, (actually my husband does daily).
December 11, 2014 at 3:15 am #820020
JKBParticipantMy parents.got one Thanksgiving Day. I was visiting and happened to answer the phone. This one was a computer hack, asking us to go log in and run stuff they would provide. There are some people who should just be beaten with sticks.
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