Scamming the Elderly!

I have told you before about my relationship with my dad.

I don’t often talk about my dad on the blog because if I am truly honest we have never had the greatest relationship; the fact is that my dad and I are just two very different people.

Before mum passed away the relationship was more strained than it is now. We wouldn’t really do more than utter small talk at the dinner table.

That being said it didn’t stop the love and support that we give each other; even more so when he was diagnosed with Cancer.

It obviously upsets me then when I find out that he is trying to be conned by some stupid scheme.

When it comes down to character traits I am definitely more like my Mum. She was intelligent, funny and cheeky and I see a lot of what I say and do that projects her. My dad however is the physically strong, silent and, with no offence, less intelligent type.

He is the type that sits and watches a documentary on some obscure Sky channel that is hunting the existence of dragons. The shows that find different animals both alive and extinct that have something similar to a dragon and then concludes that if all these animals have them individually that it must be that they existed; something that he happily then forwards on to people as proven scientific fact! Sigh.  

My parent’s relationship was a funny one to watch; Mum was the nagging wife and dad played the grumpy brow beaten husband. When mum put her foot down dad either did exactly what he was told or would hide down the garden to have a smoke or “work” in the greenhouse.

Yet without mum around you now start to see how much she actually reined him in and how much he relied on her.

Although he has some great life experience he is also of that generation that actually helped people, supported them in a crisis and ultimately the generation that came from war torn Britain; which, in my opinion, has left him vulnerable to con men and criminals!

Scammers are clever and ruthless and their stories can be very convincing. Last year alone my brother and I have luckily been around to stop 3 different scams:

1. Some random man, no certificates, wanting to spray dads grass to kill weeds with his homemade mixture! Cost £24 once a month per garden.

2. Someone knocking on the door to say that dad should have his roof painted. This special paint is waterproof so will seal the tiles and your roof will never get dirty of gather moss. £5,900 at a bargain price every few years!

3. To book a Pre MOT. Costs £50 to take your car in to be checked over and then if any work needs doing then they can arrange it.

Most of you can probably relate to the first 2 and see why it would be an issue. The third option many people might wonder why it is a con because many have pre-MOT; although only until this week had I heard of them.

Yet, Dad is a 76 year old man. He has, up until now, always taken his cars to the same garage. Every single service, MOT and even to fill his car up with petrol! It is his place to go and honestly they are excellent. So, to hear that he is taking his car to another garage because they phoned him up to see if he wants a pre MOT shocked us.

Apparently this stops him from failing the MOT; they go through all of the checks, makes a list of what is wrong and then they can fix it from him. I may be the stupid but doesn’t the MOT do that?

The confusion continues, apparently it will also help with the front panel problem! What problem? Asked my dad and he had no idea!

From our point of view this is a garage trying to fleece an old man. That would easily be a £50 check up that would come out as a £300 bill because he “needs” X,Y and Z done.

I think it is disgusting personally. All of the above have been things that my dad openly sees as being beneficial to him, that will really help his situation and worst of all, he feels relieved and happy that it will happen.

They often target vulnerable older people, but anyone can be a victim of a scam. Apparently over 3 million people a year in the UK are victims of scams, and only 5% are reported, so the number could be much higher.

My thing here is that I know my dad is lucky that he has us around and if you get him chatting for long enough he will tell you everything, even the colour of his socks! So we can step in and tell him if something is wrong. Yet, there are thousands of people who don’t have that support.

I know many of you would equally be disgusted that these things happen but realistically it is sad that we live in a world where it does.

What do you think? Have you seen this kind of thing happen?