What to do?

JC5

Last few days DH has taken $600 out of his bank account, answered a phone call at 8:15 am from some scam place asking for his Medicare # because they will pay for a back and knee brace. Thank goodness I intervened as he was looking for his Medicare card! He woke up and called the house phone at 5 am! Not sure what to do . I did take his debit card and he is so upset! Wow this is endless!

trottingalong

get the durable power of attorney and make sure the bank has a copy. Also, change all passwords. Make his debit or credit card disappear. He should not have access to any of your accounts. Can you put the house phone on silent?

Jeanne C.

also go online and freeze his credit with the 3 credit bureaus so no one can open a line of credit in his name.

blacksparky

I also have made sure DW doesn’t have access to any credit cards. I had her social security assigned to me and opened a new account with me only holding the debit card. She had one of her cards saved by various online businesses. I reported the card as lost. When I received the new card I put a lock on it and hid it from her. I bought several store gift cards at small amounts and put them in her wallet. She now thinks she has her credit cards back. The things we do to keep the peace. 😩🤔

Victoriaredux

How did he get to the bank to take out $600? Drive?

Once a person is on the scammers list they are out there for everyone.

You need to get him off the phone and away from your finances or you could be wiped out. It isn't a bad judgement like a middle of the night shopping purchase but him risking everything because he can no longer manage his affairs. I hope you have the legal piece done.

SDianeL

lock down everything. No internet. Don’t let him answer the phone. You could lose everything. Fun to him. Tell him the phone is broken and you have to get a new one. Same with internet. You have to call the provider. Rinse and repeat the fibs. If he’s driving he shouldn’t be in my opinion. He could cause an accident or get lost.

harshedbuzz

@JC5

This is scary stuff. There are companies that sell contact information specifically about seniors, so once he's made it to such a list— even if by no fault of his own— all bets are off.

If he's disoriented to time (the 5am call) and common scammers, he is no longer safe to be driving. He may not even be safe out in the community without supervision.

In your shoes, I'd cut off his access to everything related to communication (mail, internet and phone) as well as lock down your finances. I'd freeze credit. I would also consider a PO box for mail. And I'd consider creating a second account for most of you funds so that deposits are automatically drafted into the new account to protect it.

signed,

HB, whose mom ignored my suggestion and found herself $360K poorer for it.

Anna2022

I placed my DH's iPhone on "silent unknown callers." If the number is not in the list of contacts, the phone is silent. If they are legit and also unknown, they will leave a message. As a result of this, DH has not answered his phone in the past year…mostly because no one he knows calls him.

Maru

We had a similar thing happen about the time DH was diagnosed. DH gave the pin number to our bank accound. Luckily, I got it changed within minutes. Then I immediately changed all finacial stuff to me as the person to call. I talked to our investor. We are lucky in that our investor had lost both a parent and an mother in law to Alz so he understood that I would be making all final decisions, regardless of any conversation he might have with DH. We had just completed the POA, will, trust and MPOA. Dementia is scary enough without having to worry if you will be scammed out of everything you have.

housefinch

Our PWD walked to the bank & withdrew cash to take his visiting family to dinner. When he got home, he couldn’t find the money. It took several hours of frantic searching to find it. He had gotten $2000 out to take 3 people total to dinner. My mom was already durable POA & had not filed paperwork with the bank or frozen his credit.