Endless phone calls

LevisHouse

I was recently appointed conservator of my aunt due to the dementia. Phew! That is a big step, although there is still a lot of work to do (tracking down all of her bills, etc.). Here is my issue and question: My aunt has always been very attached to her phone - for years she would get up in the morning and start making calls, organizing her paperwork and bills, and manage her calendar. While she can't organize or manage her calendar at all, she is still quite capable of making calls. And she will do it for hours. This means she will call the insurance broker, the phone company, the electric company (on and on) and talk to a customer service person and make changes based on their recommendations. And she'll call over and over and over. Just today I opened a new cell phone fro AT&T. Fortunately it was free, but this is the kind of thing that happens. (She doesn't like to spend money, so she isn't spending on a cc - although this may change...) I haven't come up with one single way to get her to stop. Have any of you experienced this and found a way to get it to stop?

Thank you for your ideas!

LaurenB

Can you delete the phone numbers from her phone so that she'd have to look them up?  What about putting passwords on the account or letting the accounts know that she is not authorized to make changes?  Good luck, the struggle is real.

Marta

What have been the consequences off all these unnecessary calls, other than wasted time for those who answer them?  If she is putting money or assets at risk, the person who has her financial power of attorney needs to activate it, freeze her credit reports, divert bill paying to the POA so she does not miss crucial payments, such as life insurance, taxes, or mortgage/rent, and in general take over.  As her conservator, I imagine that person is you.

Other than that, the only sure way to stop the calls and protect her from scammers is to lose the phone. 

abc123

It’s only a matter of time before she reaches a high pressure sales person and she makes a huge purchase. That could be just as bad as a scam. She is fortunate to have you on her care team. I am a firm believer that once a PWD is past a certain point, they should NOT have a cell phone. There are many post about cell phones causing problems. Good luck to you!

star26

Have all of the companies she is calling already been informed of the conservatorship? Protecting her assets is the responsibility of the conservator so it’s important to act quickly to get everything secured. Most or all credit cards can be cancelled so this shouldn’t be a worry in the future. Once all correspondence is only coming only to you, and the old statements in her house have been cleaned out, she likely won’t have the phone and account numbers to call them and she shouldn’t have any authority if she does. Then it will be a matter of redirecting her to new activities in the morning until she eventually forgets about this. 

 

M1

I have a similar issue Levi and haven't been able to figure out how to manage it.  We have to have a landline in the house for safety's sake (metal roof, no cell service).  So while my partner never used a smartphone and really never uses her flip cell any more, she can mostly still dial on a landline, and she does the same thing--makes unnecessary calls to brokers of all sorts.  Good example:  she's actually in the class-action lawsuit against Monsanto for Roundup being a carcinogen (filed years ago when she could still function), and we've done all the paperwork, she's actually scheduled to get a payout from that lawsuit in December.  But she forgets all about it, so last week when she saw an attorney advertisement on TV, she calls them.  Of course she couldn't answer any of their questions; but they referred her to another attorney's office, and now i can't stop their nuisance callbacks. I bet they'd be pretty annoyed if they thought she was trying to double-dip.   Similar things happen with Medicare Advantage ads (OMG, what a pain), her investment broker, etc.--fortunately the latter is pretty understanding (and knows I have POA on her accounts).  

The only thing I've found is that I try to keep the phone off the hook during work hours if she's in the house, and I monitor the caller ID pretty closely.  She doesn't know how to read it any more.

Long way of saying I commiserate but don't really have any great answers.

LevisHouse

Yes, M1 - this is exactly it! I should have included that this is a landline - she has a cell phone but never uses it because the reception is so bad where she lives (she got it when she was still driving into the City). She has cancelled nearly all of her insurance (flood, earthquake, prescription drug). She will call people who used to work for her and get them to come to do more work that isn't needed - they are being polite and don't know what to do. The conservatorship is still new, so I'm working on getting all of the accounts changed and everyone updated, but I learn about new ones every week!

CAE

We found a solution called TeleCalm that uses a landline phone that is plugged into the TeleCalm receiver (which acts basically like a cell phone receiver).  You can program in the numbers your LO can call and more importantly who can call them.  Eliminates SPAM calls!  It also allows you to disable calling during certain hours (middle of the night).  Paired with a land line that has large buttons to allow one-touch dialing to the most important contacts, it works great in early-to-mid stage of disease.

M1

Thanks CAE, I'll look that up

LevisHouse

Thanks, CAE! My sister is going to research this one.

M1

I did look it up, and while it looked promising, you can only have two phone extensions on it, apparently, and that's with a splitter.  We have at least four phones in the house, so it would mean giving up two of the phones.  Not sure that's the right thing to do.  It would replace our ATT service altogether.  Probably a no go in our current setup.   In a smaller venue it would probably work.

Drowning Daughter

Hi ABC123,  I saw your post about the huge purchase.  My mother just signed a $15,000 contract for Leaf Filter to put their product on her house.  They are supposed to be here tomorrow to start work.  I've asked another family member (whose mother is already in a care facility) how she dealt with issues like this, but her mother had signed a document when she was still lucid to give her daughter power-of-attorney over her affairs.  My mother's diagnosis is relatively new and I don't know what I can legally do and not do.  Do you, or can anyone reading this, tell me what steps I can take to slow or stop this contract from going forward?

tdnp

 We had very similar situations with my mom.  She would call and change her vehicle insurance, landline plan and even changed her Medicare plan, which would have been impossible to get correct had she had not moved in with me in a different state. 

We found Raz Memory Phone.  

https://www.alzstore.com/RAZ-Memory-Cell-Phone-for-Seniors-p/0039.htm?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Alzheimer%27s%20-%20RAZ%20Mobile%20Phones%20-%20tRoas&utm_medium=ppc

https://www.razmobility.com/SUPPORT/MEMORYCELLPHONE/.

It only allows her to call the pictures that are on the home screen which I loaded from a web-based admin console.  And only the people that are approved can call her.  There are no numbers on the phone. Simple 911 and the preloaded contacts.  They when have a service wo intercept the 911 calls to confirm it is an emergency, which we have use 3 time is the last 3 months.

She is not happy about it but for us as caregivers it hit all the check boxes.  Limits inbound and outbound calls and provide GPS tracking.  That is it, nothing else.

I am not endorsing but only providing information on what worked for us.

abc123

Drowning Daughter, Wow! I'm so sorry this has happened and I hope you can get it under control. Could you start a new thread about this? We have several members who can offer up good advice and suggestions about this issue. Jo C., Harshed Buzz and Crushed all come to mind. Hang in there. Good Luck and let us know how it turns out.

tdnp

Drowning Daughter

There are laws in specific states that protect the elderly against predatory contractors\persons.  I would start by contacting any Agency on Ageing that you have close to you.  Both private\Volunteer and state agencies.  I would also contact the State Attorney General and see fi they can help.  The challenge may be that you may have to have her stated as being incompetent and apply for conservatorship. 

 

Finally I would get with the company that has the contract and explain the situation including the contacting of support and see if they will do the right thing and bow out of the contract.

Good Luck

 

ferries

Is she using a landline or mobile phone? If mobile you can block all calls except contacts. Since you are in the situation you are in, you need to call each and every biller and make yourself the only person that can make changes, and have the bills sent to you. Any credit or debt cards she has, say they are lost then she can keep the ones she has, but have new cards sent to you. This is your responsibility, on all this she is spending and you will be legally accountable, so take action with that in mind.

On the other hand, at least she is keeping herself busy. Maybe you could give her a list each week of things you want her to check into for you. Air quality in different cities, strange things like particles of arsenic in water in different areas. Is there a book club you could get her in? Maybe there is a card club you could have her join, some knitting group. Or give her gardening projects they could be small, planting flowers in pots. Or, how about get her a blank journal and ask her to write a nice recipe book of her favorite recipes and also put fond memories she has in it. She can research hiking boots for you, great winter coats, what the best dog to get is. Tell her there is an issue with the cabinets with water leaks and have her look into plumbing fixtures. Maybe she would have fun checking out google earth. Have her organize a massive xmas card list. If you don't know a massive amount of people maybe you can find an old roledex on ebay and have her organize it and then do lists and lists for you. Even looking into old patterns on plates or artists works. Find odd facts for her to look into, maybe she will find this is more fun than calling and changing her billing dates and messing up her utilities.

Of course, this is going to take a lot of your time to organize a lot of weird things to keep her busy.  Does she like to read? You could get book 1 of a series for her maybe she will be hooked.

ndhme

LevisHouse

One of the easiest things to do to gain control of her bills is to put a change of address in with the post office to your address.  Then as you receive her bills/mail you can contact the companies, ask how to send them a copy of your conservorship paperwork and change the contact info to you in their records.  If she is getting junk mail get her name removed from their database so she doesn’t/won’t order or try to send money.  Go to the bank if you haven’t already and update all information to remove her access so she doesn’t make any changes and if she has anything on auto pay you can manage that plus change the password.  If she has debit/credit cards that she may use at a store, cancel and give her a refillable preloaded card ($50 or $100) to ensure she can’t be scammed or if she prefers, put a 10, a 5 and a few 1’s in her wallet so she feels she has money (I did that with hubby…he didn’t miss his cards and was content just seeing he had his own money). Medicare, Social Security and other insurances will also need a copy so you can handle anything pertaining to her.  (Even as a spouse neither one would talk with me without proof and with SS I only wanted to increase tax withholdings not change banks or anything else). 

As far as the phone goes maybe her service could block all long distance to include  toll free calls   That may cut down calls to companies significantly. At least until you come up with a better way to manage it.  As for the “free” cell phone I would check into that because it normally has strings attached. 

I know this seems like a huge hurdle but you will soar right through setting everything up.  

PS.  The insurances she cancelled…contact them, explain she has Alz and was not competent to make those decisions and that you are now her conservator and is there anything you can do to reinstate those coverages. 

Wilted Daughter

I just read this post, you are not alone. My mom also has an attachment to the phone. She is now in acute rehab and demands to have the phone by her side when in the room to receive calls. 

Early on when she was making repeated, unnecessary calls (ordering, changing, etc.) I changed phone carriers, blocked numbers, closed accounts and requested accounts to be flagged (do not sell). You should be able to request that all contact be directed to you and nothing to be done with her calls without your confirmation. Removing access to business contact numbers is also helpful. 

Phones were/are definitely an issue to be addressed and resolved but it's a process. 

ebplionis

You could also try getting her busy doing something else during the day (much easier said than done!).  I for one am trying to get my mother into an adult day center.  Currently she is on the waitlist because of COVID, but I am just dreaming of all the issues that will be solved once she starts.  It is amazing how much trouble she can get into in her apartment, even with a caregiver.  She is constantly "packing" moving things and hiding her keys.  The phone is no longer an issue, she can't follow the steps of finding a phone number, and then dialing, but the spammers were a problem unit we set up nomorobo (an FCC approved free anti-spamming service).  It doesn't catch all of them, but it catches a lot. 

Also, if she has a phone book or files with the numbers that she accesses, just get rid of it, or replace the numbers with fake ones.  Once I took my mother's credit cards away, I removed them while she was napping so we didn't have any sort of heated conversation about it, she eventually stopped trying to go to the store to make purchases.  She still asks occasionally but its less and less each month.  I gather it might be the same for the phone book etc.