MIL got scammed again

[bjl584]

My MIL fell for a scam last week and lost $3000
It was the classic person calling saying she won a prize and just needed to buy gift cards and give the scammer the numbers on the back in order to claim the prize

She has fallen for several other scams the past year, has had her identity stolen multiple times, and has several delinquent bills.
All this came to light last week when we opened up her finances and started looking into things.

I want to completely take over her finances and her bills, but my wife and her sister aren't ready to go that far yet.

They managed to set her up with credit monitoring and have a limit on her bank accounts. Basically, if she tries to withdraw any more than $200 at a time my wife will get a phone call from the bank to approve or deny the request.

The inevitability is that one day we will be managing her finances 100%

[bjl584]

I don't have access to her email, but I believe that my sister in law does.
I will have to check her browser and computer.
Facebook is a wild card. I'll have to see if we can gain access to her page.

We did set her I-phone up so that only numbers in her contact lists will ring. All other calls go to voicemail automatically

[Fishindude77]

If we are lucky enough to have our parents grow old, many of us will deal with this sort of thing.
I took my Mom's finances over completely in her latter years, paid all the bills and gave her cash for spending. She really didn't need a card for anything as a tank of gas would last months and I'd just go fill it up.

Wife & sister need to get on board. One of them could easily handle it.

[bjl584]

Wife & sister need to get on board. One of them could easily handle it.

Yep. If this was my parent I would have already taken everything over. Little tricky for me to get fully involved when it is an in law and there are others involved.

[ua_guy]

If she doesn't need immediate access to open new credit accounts, it would be worth getting her to freeze her credit file through all 3 bureaus: Equifax, Transunion, Experian.

I assume she has her Social Security Administration online account already established and protected so someone can't make bogus social security claims?

[bjl584]

If she doesn't need immediate access to open new credit accounts, it would be worth getting her to freeze her credit file through all 3 bureaus: Equifax, Transunion, Experian.

I assume she has her Social Security Administration online account already established and protected so someone can't make bogus social security claims?

credit was recently frozen, and yes, SS online account is already established
the trick is to keep her from clicking around online, answering unknown texts and calls, and generally managing her money to make sure the bills get paid

[myrdale]

Does she understand / recognize now that those were fraudulent / scams?

My own mother called me in a panic about Windows calling her because of virus on her computer.

When we discussed it, she understood how ludicrous the situation was. Since then she keeps an air horn by the phone.

Also to the point about "Don't answer phone calls" I have keep my phone on Do Not Disturb for the past year so I only get rings from white listed / contacts. I still get 5-10 calls a day from scammers myself.

[bjl584]

Does she understand / recognize now that those were fraudulent / scams?

My own mother called me in a panic about Windows calling her because of virus on her computer.

When we discussed it, she understood how ludicrous the situation was. Since then she keeps an air horn by the phone.

Also to the point about "Don't answer phone calls" I have keep my phone on Do Not Disturb for the past year so I only get rings from white listed / contacts. I still get 5-10 calls a day from scammers myself.

She does, but it doesn't stop her from falling for them over and over.
In the moment she gets confused and her judgement is clouded.
After the fact, she realizes it was a scam

[ua_guy]

Limiting inbound calls to only known contacts only is a good start, but, does she still communicate with healthcare providers and offices on her phone? Both Apple and Android now have features that pre-screen calls and require the caller to state their name and reason for calling. This will show up on the screen and allow your relative to choose whether or not to answer the call. Then again, most healthcare offices are pretty good about putting their caller ID information out there. Not that caller ID's can't be spoofed, but most scammers aren't going to know which one to replicate to target a vulnerable relative.

Shameless plug for Mac/apple devices, they're just more secure, more easily configured, and administrative controls are very easily locked down.