Petunia Chronicles, Part III

Maybe managing money was never Petunia’s forté and we just didn’t notice. Maybe she has little to do but worry about whether she has enough money to live out her days in comfort. Maybe she is lonely. Most likely it is a combination of things. To my mind there has to be some explanation about why she keeps falling for these scams, somehow thwarting every attempt to protect and help her.

One of the ways my parents tried to protect Petunia when they discovered she was the victim of multiple scams was by changing her phone number and making it an unlisted and restricted number so it wouldn’t show up on caller id. As she continues to take money out of her account in order to get money orders for sweepstakes, it has become clear that in at least some of the cases she was making the initial contact and providing her phone number.

We had a very hard time figuring out how Petunia was ending up with monthly $200 to $250 phone bills. The story we pieced together is fairly simple. At some point before we changed Petunia’s number, a woman from Jamaica called to tell my grandma that she had won a lottery or some sort of prize. The usual scam (requiring payment of fees and taxes) ensued, followed by Petunia believing that she had befriended this woman. We don’t think Petunia realized that she was making international telephone calls. So she would call the woman in Jamaica every day or so to chat and ask when she was receiving her money. Now she’s just calling because she’s mad at the woman and wants her money. I don’t think the woman in Jamaica really cares about Petunia’s moods because she’s making money either way.

I always wondered just how international phone scams worked and it turns out that there are a lot of phone scams out there that don’t even involve answering the phone. For information about different ways unscrupulous businesses can charge you money please go to www.fraud.org. This website also has plenty of suggestions on how avoid scams and frauds. If you suspect you’ve been a victim of telephone fraud, please report it to the Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357).

There seems to be a very fine line between protecting the ones we love and robbing them of independence. The best way that we can protect, yet not stifle or control, is education. Talk to your loved ones about scams and frauds and protecting themselves. Many seniors find it impolite to hang up on someone, or because they are lonely are more likely to listen to a scam artist’s pitch, making them targets for this type of abuse.

LAS offers community education presentations about scams and frauds—please see our website, http://www.lashicap.org/services/community-education-presentations, or call our offices, (510)832-3040, for more information. We also provide legal advice and advocacy to people who are victims of consumer fraud.