Scam protection advice?
Within the last two weeks, I got durable power of attorney on my biological father and his wife. Their situation is dire indeed! But in going through their papers, I find that there are literally THOUSANDS spent on Get Rich Quick schemes and fake internet drugs that promise, "Take our pill and your hearing/heart/arteries/energy/whatever will be like you're 20 again!"
I found a wad of receipts from the post office becuase they keep buying this crap and mailing it back, but I don't see the commensurate credits back in their account. HOW DO I stop them from doing this? I've explained that $99 to some guy who calls you to fix your computer is a bad idea, but they keep handing out the money they need. Help! Help!
They are on a fixed income. They live below the poverty line. They have enormous medical bills they cannot pay. There are more than $4,000 in scam receipts on my desk right now!
3 Answers
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Quite honestly, without guardianship, there is very little you can do. They will eventually, if they live so long be in a nursing home that provides care for Medicaid payments. The fact that they may have been scammed for say 30,000 over time, while it is sad and awful, would not have bought the two of them a whole lot more than 4 months in assisted living.
It is what it is. You can fight now to get guardianship and control, to become Rep. Payee for Social Security. This would give you a lot of cost and a lot of work would be the result. My brother ASKED me to become Trustee of his Trust when he got a diagnosis of probable early Lewys. It was a tremendous amount of work to get everything ironed out with all entities from supplemental insurance to banks. Meticulous records must be kept, and more so if you are Representative Payee. I gave him his own charge card which I paid and oversaw, and his own spending account, which, careful guy that he always was he actually GREW over a years time. But it will still a lot of work, and it was hard to do from another town.
I couldn't wish you more luck. But if they have no money then this will be self limiting, and if this is their habit it won't stop now. They have living thinking gambling can win you something. It is likely how they will die with what little is left of spending money. At least they aren't giving the money away in chunks to some ungrateful grandkid, as that would count as gifting and go against them in a bid for medicaid. The best thing you can do now is to prepair all accounts and stuff you can for the 5 year (or less in some states) lookback for medicaid.
If you can't stop them from doing ludicrous things then that may be your only option.
Have you tried prepaid debit cards that once they blow that weeks or months allowance they don't have any money until next month?
Have you taken away their credit cards?
How do they feel about giving up control of most their finances? My parents are dead set against it, so I had to decide that I can't do anything and that includes bailing them out financially.