FB Cure Scams

kinseyatoz

Just need to hear how you have handled your loved ones when he/she comes to you touting this new "cure" that Bill Gates, or Elon Musk, or Phil Donahue, or some other celebrity has discovered. My sister is constantly coming to tell us if this cures and wants to buy the honey or gummy that gets rid of Alzheimers. These fake ads are so cruel! Giving false hope to people desperately looking for help.

We've tried to show her it's a scam. Sometimes it works, other times it just makes her angry.

What do you do?

harshedbuzz

@kinseyatoz

These people are the lowest of the low. Ditto Prevegen.

The first rule of Dementia Fight Club is to never reason with a person who has a broken reasoner. Explaining is reasoning and isn't likely to work.

Where is she seeing these AI generated ads? Is it something to which you can restrict access? Or would it be possible to offer her a multivitamin gummie and let her think it's their miracle cure?

HB

H1235

What I have done is just say “Oh that’s interesting, I haven’t heard of that. I’ll have to look into that.” The next time it came up I said I hadn’t had the time to look into it yet. After that I think she just forgot about it. Is there anyway to stop your lo from seeing this nonsense to begin with? Is she still using the internet on her own?

kinseyatoz

She still has her smart phone and finds these constantly on Facebook. We mostly are able to deflect. Some days she's more able to listen and we've suggested that her doctor, who is a neuroligist specializing in Alzheimers would absolutely use these if they worked. That works occasionally.

I just find these scams so cruel! They prey on a desparate group of prople!

dancsfo

I think that @harshedbuzz 's idea to offer a placebo gummy is good since it avoids conflict and seems agreeable with the PWD. One concern is that if the PWD still has access to Facebook on the smart phone, the PWD may attempt place an order on the device for those products.

I don't know if you can set up payment blocks (similiar to parental controls) to prevent that from happening.

Once you hear complaints that a purchase was not possible, then you can state a "fib" that you will make arrangements to buy them and then in a few days, offer the gummy that you pretend was delivered.

I do wonder if the PWD will remember in a few days that you had offered to purchase the drugs? Seems like PWD has enough awareness of being afflicted with Alzheimers which leads for a desire for such a cure but is still easily misled by such scam ads. It may be a difficult in-between stage.

Sunfish47

Yes we wasted money on prevagen and some other miracle cure for several months maybe a year, til I was able to contact his credit card companies (three) to report scams and get his cards cancelled. He’s stage 5 now and doesnt read much or even know that his credit cards are missing, so not an issue any longer.

kinseyatoz

Fortunately she can't remrmber our address, so if and when she's tried to purchase, she has to ask us what our address is. That's only happened a couple of times. She did order it herself one time early on but the credit card company caught it as a scam and stopped the payment. She agreed to give us her credit cards, but that caused a huge problem. She forget she gave them to us and went ballistic about us "taking" her card away. We're are clearly in the in between stage. It's hard and scary.

dancsfo

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/269844#Comment_269844

I've read elsewhere in this forum that you can give a fake card (like the fake ones placed in a card sleeve when you buy some wallets, or maybe you can make your own) or an expired credit card (it will be real plastic), which at least may satisfy the problem of being accused of "taking" her card. If she tries to use them, I hope she won't remember the address again. In either case, you won't make a payment and defuse some anger.