Scam mailers often prey on the elderly

Date published: 12/29/2005

By STEPHANIE TAIT

She lost $6,000 before he could stop her.

A Stafford County man's 87-year-old mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, wrote more than 150 checks to various mail-order companies over a two-month period before her son realized what she was doing.

"I was extremely upset," he said. "She used to come banging on my door, thinking she'd won."

What she thought she won was anything from a grand prize of $25,000 to a free vacation and merchandise.

She hadn't won a thing. Fact is, she was losing money daily.

John did not want his last name identified, in order to protect his mother's privacy. He said he hopes that his talking about the experience will help others avoid similar problems.

He said he didn't notice his mother's problem at first.

"I live right across the street from her and all of a sudden, she started getting half a shoe box full of junk mail every day," he said.

Martin Davis, an inspector with the U.S. Postal Service's Washington Division, investigates such operations.

These junk-mail companies are very profitable, he says.

"It's a science," Davis said. "They identify people who fall for this stuff, some people just can't throw it away."

While there are different ways for these companies to make money, John's mother lost hers gradually.

She would respond to letters telling her to send in $20 in order to learn how to get her grand prize.

"What happened was, she'd write checks for like $20 or $15, then sign the slip of paper and send them in," said John, who now has power of attorney and handles her finances. "Then the people would use her signature to debit more money from her account."

Jackie Ruble, branch manager of a local BB&T, said banks act as the "middle man" between a customer and a business.

"Banks assume that clients have given their OK when money is taken out," Ruble said. "If not and the customer gets a statement and sees unauthorized debits, they come and tell us and we investigate it."

Ruble said the best way to avoid these situations is to safeguard personal information.

"It's an electronic world," she said. "Never sign anything, never agree to anything or your setting yourself up for a hard time."

Avoiding scams State and federal authorities make the following suggestions for dealing with sweepstakes scams: Don't respond to a sweepstakes or lottery letter in the first place. If you have already responded and are receiving large amounts of junk mail, tear them up and do not respond. The companies will see that you are no longer sending them checks and they will cut their losses and ultimately stop mailing you letters. The best way to stop debits from your checking account is to close your checking account and open a new one. To keep relatives from being duped, contact your local post office and ask them to route the mail to a bulk mail account. It will be routed to a box where you can go pick it up before anyone else in your household has a chance to respond to it. To protect family members with Alzheimer's disease, try to obtain power of attorney over a family member's finances. You can monitor checking accounts, closing accounts that are being debited and monitoring their finances.

Date published: 12/29/2005