It’s been a while since I last posted about seniors falling to fraudulent schemes. It’s a given fact that seniors are the usual targets of scams and personally, I take offense on that. I only take refuge in the fact that maybe these unscrupulous people who are after a senior believe we have money hidden somewhere and not because we are gullible human beings—easy enough to handle.

I still believe that in order to protect a senior from scams, we need to educate ourselves from scammers’ usual activities. Keeping up with current events by merely watching news and reading papers can definitely warn us thus preparing us if and when the situation hits us. If you are fairly active with the internet i.e if you check your emails daily and connect with your loved-ones using social networking sites, it pays big time to check new and inventive ways these scammers use. The internet community has always been helpful in alerting us when there’s a new, fast-spreading scam within the circle. For one, Facebook management gives out updates and reports regularly, so when they do, make sure you read it.

One of the hardest to handle is unsolicited phone calls. Telemarketers are trained to be persistent, bordering to annoying. Also, before they call your home, they already did their homework, knowing every minute detail they can scrape about your character. What makes it scarier is that this kind of calls is never random, in fact they are targeted, making you exposed and vulnerable. The best way to handle this situation is to simply hang-up. No need to fret over being rude, just remember that this person who is calling you has no right to come snooping on you. Think of it as simply returning the favor. Being nice to them is simply encouraging them to call back—and that, they will certainly oblige.

Another easy way for scammers to invade your life is through mails. My advice is to not bother opening mails you don’t expect to be coming your way, no matter how tempting the envelope may be. Throw them straight to the thrash can where they truly belong. Personally, I’m amazed how my mails seem to grow right along with my age! Also, be doubly aware of credit card charges and bank balances. If this task is getting harder to accomplish each day, get someone to do it for you. Just make sure this person can be held liable and can be sued if there’s a discrepancy in records.

I also find it annoying to have someone knocking on my door and persisting to come and check something. First off, I don’t like strangers coming in my home, ever, and you should do too. Second, I don’t like someone telling me there’s something wrong with my house especially when I don’t see anything wrong with it, again, you should do too. If you need to get your home repaired, you come to them, not the other way around, no matter how convenient the arrangement seemed to be.