Protecting an elderly relative from scams

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Evening all
I have an elderly relative who I am worried may be taken to the cleaners. Was speaking to them a few days ago and they received a cold call from a utilities firm offering a ‘good deal’ and they signed up over the phone and gave their bank details over the phone. As it turns out this was not a scam (but not a good deal either,,). But this could so easily have been a scam and their bank accounts emptied.
How best should his bank accounts be set up?
I am thinking that any savings / investments be in a totally separate bank to the current account. I also think that disabling internet banking will be safest.
Is there anything else that could be done to protect them?
 
Depends on how gullible they are? Mother in law shared her screen or something like that and lost £800 (bank refunded it) but she is stupid! I would suggest that you simply tell them to hang up for any cold call and not to even engage, unless you, friend or relative are talking. If not then yes, no online banking but they could still be ripped off in other ways.
 
How close a relative is this person,could you get power of atourney,if thats not possible would his bank talk to you about other options
 
We had a few trying it on with my Mum, she has dementia and I have POA, we discontinued the broadband and I now do all the banking. These folk are extremely smart so it's very hard to decide between honest and crooked.

They contacted my Mum who after a long conversation she said they would need to phone me, They then phoned me and said they were from the bank security and said they had seen suspicious activity on her account and I was the PoA contact. The woman was very well spoken and up to speed with security questions etc. She asked me to check with my Mum and make sure she was ok while she would wait on the line. I contacted Mum via mobile and confirmed the conversation with 'someone', a male with an English accent and she told them to contact me.
This is the point I sussed it, I asked the female to give me a number to call back and she hung up!
Phoned the bank and they confirmed it was a scam.
 
cymruchris said:
Get them to install a nuisance call blocking phone that only accepts calls from 'known numbers' programmed into the handset. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0787KRDFT/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_dlT4_Dp47Fb2VQFB2F

Then make sure all the regular contacts are in there - mobiles - land lines - friends and family - doctors - dentist - etc.
Click to expand...

We tried all that , the problem there is the hospital/doctors/opticians/hearing aid/mobility folk have a zillion numbers that they call from, they get blocked and phoned me, Ended up driving me nuts and they refused to keep calling due to the barred number.
 
We have had many calls pretending to be from BT & Amazon and we just ask them to send details by post, working on the premise that if they are genuine they will have our name & address and account details without having to ask.
 
Very difficult, My mother was scammed by rogue trade shortly after my dad died. (Charged her a silly amount to stone over the front garden.) then she got dementia and whilst I did eventually get the power of attorney. It took time to do.

Simons's answer shows a complete lack of understanding of the problem. (and that is being polite) A lot of these tricksters are very good at what they do, and many intelligent people have been taken in by them.
 
Ask advice from:-
AgeUK

Council Trading Standards

Police crime prevention

If you have a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in your area it could be worth a look. They often circulate alerts when rogue traders etc. are operating in your area.
 
cambsno said:
Depends on how gullible they are? Mother in law shared her screen or something like that and lost £800 (bank refunded it) but she is stupid! I would suggest that you simply tell them to hang up for any cold call and not to even engage, unless you, friend or relative are talking. If not then yes, no online banking but they could still be ripped off in other ways.
Click to expand...

They’re not that gullible, but in their 80s so getting more easily taken advantage of.
I would consider myself savvy but I’ve nearly come a cropper!
They know not to engage with cold callers but that was forgotten in this occasion and likely will happen again in future...
 
troutfisher said:
How close a relative is this person,could you get power of atourney,if thats not possible would his bank talk to you about other options
Click to expand...
Close, but I think power of attorney would not be something they would appreciate or I would like to put in place. They have their faculties 100%, but there are so many scams these days I am worried that they may lose a lot of what they worked for.
 
cymruchris said:
Get them to install a nuisance call blocking phone that only accepts calls from 'known numbers' programmed into the handset. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0787KRDFT/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_dlT4_Dp47Fb2VQFB2F

Then make sure all the regular contacts are in there - mobiles - land lines - friends and family - doctors - dentist - etc.
Click to expand...

They pretty much only use their mobile and they are in regular contact with a lot of people do it may be problematic to block numbers not stored. But worth investigating.
 
Paul W. H said:
We have had many calls pretending to be from BT & Amazon and we just ask them to send details by post, working on the premise that if they are genuine they will have our name & address and account details without having to ask.
Click to expand...

Agreed Paul, but you and I would be approaching any call with suspicion, this relative isn’t as evidenced by them given the utility provider their bank details!
 
arclight said:
Ask advice from:-
AgeUK

Council Trading Standards

Police crime prevention

If you have a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in your area it could be worth a look. They often circulate alerts when rogue traders etc. are operating in your area.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Age uk could be a good resource.
Tbh I’m not as worried about a face to face rogue trader as I am a fake email or phone call. The relative had his own business for 30 years and dealt with a lot of rogue traders so is very savvy in that regard and old habits die hard. But the more modern scams is something he will be more susceptible to.
 
It's difficult isn't it. If there are any more close relatives perhaps you and one or two others could tactfully broach the subject again perhaps with a little white lie about how one of you was taken in and try and reinforce the point that these days scams are a real worry and it's just not worth getting involved with cold callers and offers through the post as if they are genuine offers they'll still be available when someone has had time to look into it with them.
 
woof woof said:
It's difficult isn't it. If there are any more close relatives perhaps you and one or two others could tactfully broach the subject again perhaps with a little white lie about how one of you was taken in and try and reinforce the point that these days scams are a real worry and it's just not worth getting involved with cold callers and offers through the post as if they are genuine offers they'll still be available when someone has had time to look into it with them.
Click to expand...

No need to be extra tactful! I can speak very candidly to them about scams and they are totally aware that these scams exist.
It’s just that at their age their awareness will it be 100% all the time and will be more easily fooled. I know from their reaction when they realised they had in effect given their bank details to a ‘stranger’ their face dropped and realisation set in that this could have been a bank emptying moment! But I know that I am not infallible and age will only increase the risks.
 
Rapscallion said:
Evening all
I have an elderly relative who I am worried may be taken to the cleaners. Was speaking to them a few days ago and they received a cold call from a utilities firm offering a ‘good deal’ and they signed up over the phone and gave their bank details over the phone. As it turns out this was not a scam (but not a good deal either,,). But this could so easily have been a scam and their bank accounts emptied.
How best should his bank accounts be set up?
I am thinking that any savings / investments be in a totally separate bank to the current account. I also think that disabling internet banking will be safest.
Is there anything else that could be done to protect them?
Click to expand...
As it isn’t a good deal, you should investigate the cooling-off period. Probably have 14 days to change his mind.

mum once called me in a state ‘there’s a man in my house and he’s changed my electricity’. I got her to put him on the line and he was a salesperson for a big utility company, who insisted that as mum had signed, the deal would go ahead. after arguing with him and getting nowhere I asked him what the cooling off period was. Eventually he told me it was two weeks, so I spoke to mum and asked her to tell him that she was exercising her right under the cooling off period. I got him on the phone and told him to tear up the paperwork in front of her.

she was really shaken up, and understandably so. I reported the person and the company and some months later they got a healthy fine as this was their modus operandi until then...

I know it doesn’t deal with physical callers, but we got her a TrueCall phone monitoring device, which makes callers record a message if their number isn’t in the database. I can add numbers remotely.
 
Pound Coin said:
As it isn’t a good deal, you should investigate the cooling-off period. Probably have 14 days to change his mind.

mum once called me in a state ‘there’s a man in my house and he’s changed my electricity’. I got her to put him on the line and he was a salesperson for a big utility company, who insisted that as mum had signed, the deal would go ahead. after arguing with him and getting nowhere I asked him what the cooling off period was. Eventually he told me it was two weeks, so I spoke to mum and asked her to tell him that she was exercising her right under the cooling off period. I got him on the phone and told him to tear up the paperwork in front of her.

she was really shaken up, and understandably so. I reported the person and the company and some months later they got a healthy fine as this was their modus operandi until then...

I know it doesn’t deal with physical callers, but we got her a TrueCall phone monitoring device, which makes callers record a message if their number isn’t in the database. I can add numbers remotely.
Click to expand...

Hi Poundcoin, good point re the 14 day calling off period. My brother is taking care of this side of things and i know he's been in dialogue with the utility provider and i think that is now taken care of, but i have messaged him about the 14 day cooling off period in case he is not getting anywhere.
 
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