How seniors are taken advantage of

Since I’ve been care taking my elderly parents I’ve had to fend off quite a few unscrupulous salesmen and bill collectors.My Dad has dementia and is unable take care of anything like he used to which leaves the burden to my Mom when I’m not there.If someone calls and raises their voice and says anything about something going to “collection” by God Mom has her credit card already out before she verifies if it’s a valid charge. And once you pay even you can’t get it back. Her Macy’s account has been CLOSED and a charge came through it anyway for a credit card protection plan and she didn’t pay it and got charged a late charge for something she didn’t even want in the first place. I called up and with some difficulty with Macy’s found out how they charged something to a closed account and with much more difficulty got to the actual biller who was very reluctant to take the charge off. I sort of insisted and it was done but that is just one example.

    Another one was the skilled nursing home that my Dad stayed at to recover from his broken hip.They billed him for something then late charges,etc. I tried to call,the only person responsible was on vacation. By the time I was able to call again they were more late charges and my Mom wanted to just pay it because she was scared of what they might do. I called them up and spoke to the actual responsible person and they finally checked and saw that Dad had the required Insurance coverage already and that this was not a valid bill. I asked why didn’t they check this before,she stated that “Well,nobody called’. So if I hadn’t called my Mom would’ve paid because she was frightened and I’m SURE they wouldn’t have gotten the overage back.

   I’m sure unscruptulous people prey on the elderly taking advantage of their fear and diminished capacity for understanding exactly what’s going on and it makes me furious!