Worried About an Aging Loved One’s Safety and Security in Auburn, NH? Our Senior Care Specialists Can Help

Tips from the Senior Care Specialists at Visiting Angels of Auburn

As a loved one enters their golden years, family members often help with the most visible needs: maybe you provide rides to doctor’s appointments or bring over a fresh home-cooked meal. When your loved one needs help with everyday tasks, they also have different security needs than your family might be used to thinking about. If you are concerned about the long-term wellbeing of a loved one who lives alone, the senior care specialists at Visiting Angels of Auburn are ready to help.

The team of experts at our home care agency were drawn to this work because of the calling to make a difference in the lives of others; many of our staff members have also helped care for seniors in their own family. So, when our senior care specialists were asked for ways to keep seniors safe from predators and scams, we knew we wanted to share that information as far and wide as possible. Your family is always our priority!

Common Fraud Schemes

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has tabulated the effect of fraud schemes that target seniors as having stolen billions of dollars per year—between 2013 and 2017, they estimated that those fraudulent activities cost seniors and families more than $6 billion. With your loved one’s financial security at stake, it is more important than ever that families and seniors be informed and reduce their risk.

Common schemes that target seniors are:

• Medical identity theft. A scammer calls your loved one claiming to be from Medicare or Medicaid. They attempt to obtain personal information like a Medical ID number in order to commit further fraud and theft.
• Insurance identity theft. Just like our first example, the scammer’s goal is to get personal or identifying information. They might say they are from the collections department of a big hospital, or that they are an agent from a health insurance company.
• The “grandparent” con. A scammer calls your loved one with an opening line like, “Hi Grandma! Guess who it is?” They will try to convince your loved one that they’re a family member in need of assistance.
• Charity schemes. This type of fraud takes advantage of your loved one’s good intentions. A scammer pretends to be from a charity, collecting donations for a particular cause. This often happens after natural disasters.

Our senior care specialists can help your loved one monitor incoming calls, letters, and emails, and make sure that only legitimate requests are followed up with.

Learn More

If you are concerned about the security and wellbeing of an aging loved one, Visiting Angels of Auburn can help. Call our local agency today to learn more about our at home care services.