Guest Blog: How to Fight Check Fraud and Other Common Senior Scams
Seniors grew up in a more polite time. They’re more likely to talk to strangers, they’re less likely to hang up on people, and they are often home during the day to answer their phones, making them tempting targets for fraud. Seniors over the age of 60 are the target of 49% of telemarketing scams involving medical care services and products, 41% of scams involving sweepstakes and prizes, and 40% of scams involving magazine sales. Unfortunately, it’s hard to spot it when it’s happening. Fraud can come at seniors in a variety of different ways: through the phone, mail, internet, and even in person.
Common Scams
Grandparent Scams target seniors by calling up, pretending to be a grandchild, and admitting that they’re in distress and need money to get out of a tight spot. Scammers may claim to be in jail and need bail money, to have had an accident, or simply to have ended up away from home without the gas to get back.
- Fake Check Scams ask individuals to deposit a check, then send money to another location. Unfortunately, the check is fake, and ultimately, the bank wants their money returned. Alternatively, criminals will gain access to a seniors blank or canceled check and then proceed to siphon funds out of the seniors account—especially if checks do not incorporate security features that help combat counterfeiting and alteration.
- Medicare Scams get the senior’s Medicare number, then bill Medicare for high-dollar products—all while providing inexpensive substitutes to the senior who genuinely needed that product.
- Bogus Charities call up and solicit donations for foundations and charities that aren’t really charities at all. In many cases, they don’t even exist.
- “You Have Won” Calls and Mail solicit personal information, including account details or requiring a “small payment” in order to collect the winnings.
- Living Trust Scams aim to convince people to create unnecessary living trusts, offering promises that they never follow through on. In many cases, callers will try to convince seniors to act immediately so they don’t have time to think it through.
- Imposter Scams work much like grandparent scams: they convince a senior that the individual on the other end of the phone is a loved one and ask them to send money.
- Advance Fee Scams promise high levels of rewards—either goods or services—in exchange for a “small” up-front fee.
- Phishing Scams ask users to “update” their personal information, thus providing that information to people who can then steal their identities or account information.
- Cashier’s Check Scams use fake cashier’s checks to pay for goods.
- Door-to-Door Solicitations force seniors to make snap decisions about overpriced services or goods, often those that won’t really be provided.
- “Free Lunch” Seminars offer unsolicited, often unethical or illegal investments that are designed to part seniors from their money.
- Chain Letter Scams offer “get rich quick” opportunities that are really designed only to take money from gullible seniors and other individuals.
- Bank Scams are aimed at convincing seniors to provide bank account information to scammers. Seniors may also be asked to take a “friend” to the bank to cash a check, only to discover that the check wasn’t real and the money disappears from their account.
- Work-at-Home Scams indicate that they will provide seniors the opportunity to make some money while they work from home. Unfortunately, they have huge start-up costs and little reward.
- Home Improvement Scams tell seniors that they will complete work around the house, but never finish the job or offer shoddy work and low-cost materials.
- Investment Fraud convinces seniors that their assets are being invested when really, they’re disappearing.
- Medical Equipment and Quackery Scams offer seniors “medical equipment” or other remedies that ultimately accomplish exactly nothing.
- Nigerian Schemes are classic offers: “Send me this much money so that I can complete X task, and then I will make you rich for helping me.”
- Business Opportunity Scams offer investment opportunities that really offer the senior no return on their effort or money.
Avoiding These Scams
People who wish to avoid scams can follow several simple tips:
- First, never give away personal information. This includes checking out companies and their offers with the Attorney General’s Office and the Better Business Bureau before sending money. Credit card and checking account numbers should never be offered to other people, and your social security number should remain confidential. If you’re going to donate to a charity, take the time to make sure that it’s legitimate first. It can be useful to use independent sources to verify information from anyone who has reached out to you.
- Next, never deposit or cash a check for anyone. Non-cash payments like checks, money orders, etc. should be verified by either calling the bank where the check was issued or asking your bank teller to verify its authenticity before depositing. Check to make sure that there is nothing on the check to create a flag for fraudulent activity before accepting it.
- It’s also critical to avoid making snap decisions. If an offer is “limited time” and seems too good to be true, it probably is! If you’re being pressured to make an immediate decision, walk away. No legitimate opportunity is going to expire if you don’t make a decision on the spot. Keep in mind that con artists will attempt to create a false sense of urgency and a need for secrecy. High emotions are more likely to lead to poor decisions. If you’re getting a call from someone you think is a loved one, make sure to verify their identity: ask something only they would know, reference inside jokes, or refuse to keep their secret, insisting that you’ll need to share their story.
- Keep an eye on “confidentiality.” If you’ve been told not to discuss the offer with anyone else, it’s probably a scam. Con artists know that when you consult with someone you trust, they’ll be found out. Always take the time to discuss an offer with friends or relatives if you aren’t sure about it.
- Never pay a premium in advance. Handling charges and taxes shouldn’t be part of your responsibilities on winning a prize or being invited to participate in a business opportunity. Don’t accept work-at-home opportunities that require money in advance or wire transfers. If you don’t remember putting your name in for a contest, realize that you didn’t win it.
- Finally, get it in writing. This is especially important if you don’t understand what’s being asked of you or if the details seem murky. Scammers will be reluctant to commit their so-called promises to paper, which you can reference later and show to other people.
Scammers are eager to get their hands on any bank account they can. With education and prevention efforts, however, you can keep yourself safe. Take control and protect yourself and your loved ones by knowing what’s out there and how to avoid it.
Guest Post: 5 Things to Do If You Fall
Not only are 1 out of 4 seniors experiencing a fall each year, but new data shows that more seniors are dying from falls than were a decade ago. While you can absolutely take steps to help prevent falls like decluttering pathways in your house, installing grab bars and safety rails around the bathroom and stairs, utilizing mobility tools and orthopedic aids, and exercising regularly to maintain balance and coordination, it is also critical that seniors and their caregivers know what to do in the event of a fall.
Keep these important steps in mind to limit injuries and prevent critical complications if you fall:
1. Check for injuries – when you fall, you may know right away if you have hurt yourself. Pain, discomfort, swelling, blood, and bruising will signal that there is an injury. Sometimes, however, you may not see or feel any of these symptoms immediately because your adrenaline is rushing or you are confused or disoriented.
It is key that you take a few minutes to calm your breathing and get back in touch with your body. Slowly move your feet, legs, arms, and hands. Do not attempt getting back up if you are dizzy.
2. Roll onto your side – this will allow you to rest briefly and double check you are not injured.
3. Pull yourself up onto your knees and hands – from this position you can crawl to a nearby piece of sturdy furniture or stairs on which you can pull yourself up.
4. Support your weight with your hands – place one hand at a time on a flat surface of the piece of furniture and lift your strongest leg up so your knee is bent and your foot is pressed to the floor.
5. Slowly rise to your feet – using your arms and legs, push up slowly bringing both your feet under you to stand up. Find something to sit on nearby, i.e. a chair, to rest and catch your breath.
If you are unable to get up after a fall, call for help right away. If no one is with you but you are able to safely use your mobile phone, call 911 for help. Any potential injury to your neck, spine, or internal organs does require immediate attention so it is absolutely ok to call emergency services for help.
If you fall and are both by yourself and without a phone or medical alert device, on the other hand, keep calling out for help as your energy allows, banging on a nearby wall if reachable, and keep your body moving, even if only slightly, to stay warm.
Guest Blog:The Advantages Of Hiring A Home Care Consultant For Your Business
Hiring a home care consultant for your business can make a huge impact on the credibility
of the services you provide. Home care professionals are highly sought after by people who need help with caring for their aging loved ones. As a business owner, you can build authority as a home care provider and subject matter expert by collaborating with a consultant.
Of course, not just any consultant will work for your business and its home care goals. There are different skills you want to look for in the person that you hire. But the skills that you settle on will ultimately depend on your business size, the breadth of your services, and obviously, your bottom line. That’s why you’ll want to properly vet your potential home care consultants before you bring them onto your team.
In this article, we will cover the benefits of hiring a home care consultant for your business. We’ll also make sure you’re clear on what to look for in a candidate and their background. Read on
to discover how a home care consultant can positively impact your business and the home care services it provides.
You Decide What Background You’re Looking For
There is no one-size-fits-all background to look for when hiring a home care consultant. In fact,
It’s a common misconception that home care professionals need to all have extensive medical backgrounds. This is not at all the case, although some quality home care consultants may come from a health-related background.
If you want to take a deeper dive into your candidate’s background, you can get in touch with your local licensing board that certifies home care professionals. Many of these licensing boards, what they ask for from a person looking to become certified, and their criteria to meet change, based on what state you’re in.
Whatever your candidate’s background looks like, though, there are still some key things to look for above all else. These qualities will ultimately benefit your company and your clients’ experience with your services. Good communication, empathy, patience, and dedication — these are just a few attributes in a candidate that will make a huge impact on your clients. Interview your clients – multiple times, if you’d like – to make sure that they have these essential qualities.
You Can Build Relationships with Consultants
Simply put, it’s easier to build a relationship with someone on-one-one, rather than indirectly or through a third-party like home care staffing agencies. Home care consultants bring personal-level traits like loyalty and empathy, without the bureaucratic baggage and extra steps that you deal with when hiring through an agency. Building a relationship with a consultant early-on is a great way to get a sense of their experience and quality of service.
Once you’ve gotten to know a consultant well, it’ll be much easier to introduce them to your potential and existing clients. It’ll be obvious that you have a trusted relationship with your consultant when you can introduce them naturally while still providing a lot of detail about what they can offer.
Another advantage of working with an individual consultant is meting out more manageable pay. It tends to cost a lot more to hire home care consultants through an agency or other third party. Since you’re only negotiating pay and setting rates with one person, the time from sourcing candidates to hiring them is usually much quicker. Think carefully about how much you can budget for hiring home care professionals — chances are, a consultant will make much more sense for your business’s bottom line.
You Can Easily Evaluate Performance
The last thing that you want is for your home care services to suffer without you knowing about it. When you hire a home care consultant, it’s much easier to evaluate their performance and track their growth than it is when working with an agency. With a home care consultant, you can coordinate a performance tracker with them to make sure they know how to satisfy your business needs.
You can start this process during the hiring phase when you outline with your consultant what your requirements for their performance are. After your consultant understands what your business needs are and what your clients expect from them, they can closely work with you to make sure they’re meeting your expectations. Remember, if you’re not clear with your consultant about what’s required of them early on, they’ll struggle to meet your performance standards.
A huge benefit to setting a one-on-one performance plan and schedule with a consultant is reducing your risk of time lost. It’s much more difficult to plan performance expectations through an agency, evaluate them as having met your standards, and confirm with the person being cared for that they’re satisfied. With a consultant, your business doesn’t risk wasted time, effort, and money on a home care professional that isn’t on the same page as you.
It Helps Make a Name For Your Business and its Services
Hiring a home care consultant of your own simply gives your business more credibility than hiring through an agency. When you work with a consultant, you directly coordinate the way they behave with your client, which means you’re responsible for determining what your client needs are, and making sure they’re met one-hundred percent of the time. If you go with the agency route, you’ll never be sure that you’ll have the same caregiver for any real length of time, which hurts your clients’ overall experience.
Go with a home care consultant to increase your chances of having someone reliable who can stick around for the long haul. All too often, hiring through an agency means you’ll get a rotating door of individuals with varying levels of experience and skills.
A home care consultant with whom you build up trust and a relationship will make a world of difference in the quality of care your business offers in the longer-term. Your clients will recognize your business as a reliable source of expertise, rather than an outsourcing agency that doesn’t understand what its clients really want from their home care.
Guest Blog: Self-Care for Seniors: 4 Best Ways to Prioritize Your Health
The golden years come with their advantages. There’s the newfound freedom, for example, and the chance to relax and revel in all that you have accomplished. But your retirement years also bring age-related challenges that can really put a damper on enjoying them. It’s important for seniors to place high priority on their health and well-being, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are four ways that you can place yourself first.
Social Well-Being
Although retirement usually includes the benefit of having more free time, having extra time on your hands can also have its disadvantages, especially if you live alone. Too much idle or alone time can lead to boredom, unhealthy inactivity, and even depression. Here a couple of activities to consider if you’re feeling isolated or unstimulated.
Get a part-time job
Finding a part-time job in retirement has its advantages. Not only will you have a little extra cash coming in, but you’ll meet new people and feel a sense of responsibility that you may be missing from your working years.
Senior Citizen Groups and Clubs
Joining and participating in senior groups, clubs, and organizations is often free or inexpensive, and some will even provide transportation. You can find groups that are general interest as well as others that focus on specific activities and niches.
Ensure Home Safety
Making sure that your home is a safe place to be is important for anyone, but it’s perhaps especially vital for seniors who are more at risk of falling as well as those who live alone. Here are four simple ways to make your home a safer place.
Bathing
Installing grab bars is one way to provide added safety when bathing. You can also invest in hands-free toiletry dispensers that save you the hassle of slippery bar soap or handling bulky containers.
Air Quality
It’s impossible to know exactly what toxins may be lurking in your household air, but there are steps you can take to reduce them. You can protect your home’s air quality by replacing air filters regularly and having your HVAC system checked by a repairman.
Natural Cleaning Products
Because of the current social awareness of toxins found in many cleaning and hygiene products, it has become easier to find brands that make products using only natural ingredients. You can also easily mix your own natural cleaning products using things like vinegar or lemon juice.
Maintain a Balanced Diet
There are a number of things that can hinder seniors from getting proper nutrition. These include a lack of transportation, dwindling finances, and medications that cause nausea or reduce appetites. It’s important for you to make healthy food choices at all ages. Try eating foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, and fiber, as well as drinking plenty of water.
Gentle Exercise
As a senior, it’s more important than ever to exercise regularly, and the good news is that you don’t have to put out a lot of effort. Just 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week will suffice. Walking, yoga, or swimming are gentle and effective forms of exercise for seniors. If you don’t have access to a pool at home and don’t have your own transportation, you may be able to find a senior swimming group similar to the ones discussed above that offers transportation. Then, your exercise regimen could include a social outlet as well.