Home-repair scams put seniors at risk

BBB Officials urged families of older Americans to be on the lookout for scams involving home repair and door-to-door sales.

High costs, no work

According to the BBB, elderly people – often minorities – are responding to mailbox flyers offering loans for home repairs. They don’t realize the loans have a 19 percent to 21 percent interest rate.

The contractor later convinces them to sign a “work has been completed” form and disappears without performing the repairs. On the West Coast, an elderly woman reported that she was charged $900 to have her circuit breakers “cleaned.”

Door-to-door schemes

In Newfoundland, salespeople went house to house demonstrating “new” vacuum cleaners to senior citizens; the machines turned out to be used.

In Toledo, Ohio, a woman recently knocked on doors in a senior citizens’ neighborhood, sometimes after 10 p.m.

If the resident opened the door, she barged in to falsely claim she was selling Girl Scout cookies and needed to collect the money now.

Generational vulnerability

Senior citizens are home more often, making them easy prey for fraudulent telemarketers and drive-by contractors. Also, older citizens tend to be more trusting of strangers.

In addition to home repair and door-to-door sales, common scams that target seniors are often sweepstakes or foreign lottery scams, or health-related schemes from official-sounding agencies that don’t actually exist.

Such schemes may seem particularly tempting to seniors because many of them require expensive medication that drains their resources.

“Con artists consider seniors to be easy prey and choose their entryway accordingly: the telephone, the front door bell or the mailbox,” said Steve Cole, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, in a news release.

Preventing the problem

The BBB recommends a three-pronged approach for family members, neighbors and friends to protect elderly citizens against all types of fraud.

First, check with the BBB about any suspicious visits, mail or phone calls, and particularly before giving money or personal or financial information to individuals or organizations.

Second, protect personal information. Social Security cards, for example, should never be carried in a wallet or purse. Account numbers or passwords also should be kept private from unknown parties.

Third, use measures such as the National Do Not Call registry or “No Solicitation” signs as a line of defense against fraud schemes.

Other defensive measures include helping elderly individuals sort their mail, and discouraging them from sending money in response to offers that seem too good to be true.