Some questions about seniors and scams;

[hedgehog]

Example 1 - someone comes to the door and offers to seal a driveway for a ridiculous amount of money. They pour used motor oil all over the place, take the money and run. Frequently a confederate gets inside the house to do some additional looting.

Example 2 - someone contacts a senior and assures them that they have won money, but to get the prize, they must first send money to such and such an address.

Now, I can see a senior on a limited income falling for Example 1. I can't understand anyone of any age falling for Example 2.

Do people of every age fall for these scams, and we only hear about it when seniors are involved?

Are seniors more susceptible because they keep money in the house instead of the bank?

Will that habit fade with the last of the people who grew up during the Depression?

Will people now in their 40's and 50's who have grown up hearing about such scams fall for them when they are in their 80's?

Do people become more susceptible at a certain age, or are we looking at a generational indicator?

[MineralMan]

1. Old people are definitely more susceptible to this crap.

My wife's mother and my wife and I have an agreement. She consults with us on all transactions. We've stopped some shaky ones. She doesn't mind at all asking us. We don't mind at all vetting the things.

I'm sure we've saved her several thousand dollars. For big things, like her heat pump AC unit needing work, I go over and talk to the person myself. In that case, he wanted to sell her a new unit for about $3500. When I asked how much it would cost to repair the one that was there, he finally said that it would be $500. The repair would only have a 1 year warranty, though, he explained, compared to the two year warranty on the new one. Sheesh!

We sent him away and found someone else to fix the unit, which ended up costing $350. That was three years ago, and it's still working just fine.

[NV Whino]

2. Good questions

Many of the seniors who are around today are survivors of the depression era. (The first one that is.) So the first situation appeals to their ingrained bargain hunting mentality left over from the 30s. I think this one might also hit young people, first time home owners who don't have a lot of experience.

The second one hits people who have failing mental faculties, most often seniors, but not always. A good scam artist can hit any age group.

I wonder if a study has been done on this. It would be really interesting to see the demographics.

[MineralMan]

4. The thing is, especially with older women living alone,

is that they always relied on their husbands for things like home repairs and automotive stuff. They're really vulnerable to someone telling them they HAVE TO do something or SOMETHING BAD might happen. The sales creeps back right down when I show up. It's amazing.

[onehandle]

3. The average viewer of Bill O'Reilly is 60+.

I think it's going to get worse.

Me? I will kick the shit out of anyone who tries to scam me.

[Faygo Kid]

7. Point well taken.

Talk about a scam . . .

[Sal Minella]

5. I think older people like me are simply more trusting of others because

that's the way we grew up. We aren't suspicious of things "too good to be true" because we weren't exposed to people constantly trying to scam us in our younger years.

In another 30 years, 70-year-olds will be much more wary than today's 70-year-olds are, I think.

It's not that old age makes us stupid; it's that our young years made us trusting. (I grew up in a town where mothers knew everybody else's kids, and we were out running and playing all day, but if somebody caused trouble or got hurt, there was a phone call to home immediately. The town was an organism that looked after its young.)

[Frustratedlady]

6. A scam many miss, as it is local and people you trusted...

Say a woman takes her vehicle to a local garage for an oil change. She gets a call that the car is done, but when she arrives to pick it up, they pull out this long computer printout of things that need to be changed/repaired.

This happened to me several years ago. There was a small problem with the radiator, which could blow when I was on the highway and I'd be stranded.

Then they found other parts which were about to fail...only when I was out in the boondocks, of course...keeping my safety in mind, and all that.

It would have ended up costing me $1900, but I'd have a new vehicle when they were done. Right!

I came home and marked them off the list of repair places I could depend on. I found another garage that is so honest, I've sent many of my friends to him...so many of my friends, that I have problems getting my own vehicle in for work. They love him.

A local tire franchise also pulled that one me. They are also crossed off the list.

Oh, by the way, the vehicle is still running just fine and not one single problem they brought up has happened. Not even the radiator. AND, I have bad-mouthed them to everyone I know. Stay away from them!!!!

[petronius]

11. That one seems to be SOP for a lot of places - I'm 30ish male and I get

it all the time.

My mark of a good shop is when they don't try to sell me a 'fix', a great shop is one that tells me when a genuine defect can safely wait a while...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. The general explanations I always here...

is 1. they believe that nobody would rip off a nice old person such as them, and 2. they're quite lonely and like to communicate with scam artists even though they know it's costing them a fortune. The later also applies to older people who constantly buy crap off of home shopping networks.

I don't know if I buy these explanations. But I haven't got a better explanation myself.

[hedgehog]

9. I think the loneliness is a problem for all ages, but especially older people.

[Bobbieo]

10. I am a mid-eighties female with an open e-mail address as I have a blog

and get from 10 to 15, mostly Nigerian type, e-mail scams per day. How can anyone fall for those sappy formats with the atrocious spelling addressed "To undisclosed recipients" or simply "To"?

I suppose as the recession deepens, the number of scams will increase.

[dustbunnie]

12. Scam 2 is relatively easy to see, because older people believe whatever's in the mail -

or looks "official" is somehow always above board. It's a relic of the near distant past and is probably partially due to depression era hopes and dreams for a better life. Lots of seniors now use the internet and aren't so savvy, believing the emails they get are under the same obligation to be legal as their "snail mail."

My concern is not so much that my growing older dad will be caught up in such a scheme. He's pretty good about that. It's that the elderly seek out their own on chat or news groups, and these are rife with right-wingers. I've heard my dad, always a staunch liberal, say things lately that have made me question what sites he's visiting. He seems to be ashamed when I call him on it, but still, I know he's going to these sites for companionship and it's rubbing off. My mom passed a few years ago. She even warned me before she left us, that he was spending too much time on the net. I think that's the case for many older seniors.

[Vinca]

13. There was an article in our local paper today about a senior scam

I hadn't heard about. Apparently someone calls the senior and claims to be calling for their grandson who has been arrested and needs bail money to get out of jail. The lady in this story, who would do anything for her grandchildren, went to the bank and got $3,500 out of her account. She took it to Walmart to have it wired to the grandson's "friend" (I didn't know Walmart did such things, but anyway . . .)and the clerk at the Walmart apparently thought it sounded fishy and told the old woman she should try calling her grandson's phone number to be sure. Fortunately, she took the advice and called the grandson who was at home and nowhere near the place where he was supposedly jailed.

[hedgehog]

14. We have a local savings bank which watches out for a lot of its elderly customers.

( I was there the day the clerk was explaining to an elderly lady with poor hearing that the paper in her hand was a scam.) Of course, sometimes the worst scammers are banks and similar institutions including churches.

[Winterblues]

15. As soon as I get my money from a Nigerian Prince I won't care about those scams.

They just needed me to send them my bank account numbers so they could deposit my eight million dollars into my account. I can't wait until I am filthy rich like the Republicans.