Tax season is coming, and that can leave seniors particularly vulnerable to scams that can cheat them out of their hard-earned savings. Seniors are often the targets of tax scams because scammers know that seniors are likely to have money and that they are likely going to be anxious if they get a call or a message that claims to be from the IRS. A home care provider can help them with this issue.
Scammers may try to cheat seniors by claiming that seniors have outstanding tax debts. They also sometimes will try to convince seniors that they can get an early tax refund by allowing the scammer to file their taxes. Seniors should know that the IRS will never call or use social media to message them. All communications from the IRS will come in letters that are delivered by the USPS.
If you’re worried that your senior loved one could get scammed make sure that they:
Have Home Care
Home care can help seniors avoid getting scammed. A home care provider can be the one to answer any calls to the house phone, which is usually how seniors are targeted. When a care provider answers the phone instead of your senior parent they can listen for the telltale signs of a scam and get rid of the caller before they can talk to your senior parent. The care provider can then block the scammers’ number so that they can’t call back. A care provider can also run interference in other ways to make sure that scammers don’t ever get the chance to directly talk with your senior loved one.
Have Spending Limits On Their Accounts
Another way that you can prevent scammers from taking advantage of your senior loved one is to have spending limits put on their accounts. If you are a cosigner on the accounts you can have a spending limit put on any accounts so that your senior loved one can’t spend more than a certain amount. That way if a scammer does manage to get access to your senior parent’s information they won’t be able to take more than that amount of money. It can limit the amount of damage that a scammer can do if they are successful.
Have a Prepaid Credit Card
Another option for limiting the damage that scammers can do is to get a prepaid debit card for your senior parent to use. They will only be able to spend the amount that is prepaid on the card and once they have hit that limit the card won’t work anymore. That will make it much more difficult for scammers to get any significant amounts of money from your senior loved one.
Have Identity Theft Protection
Tax scammers will often try to get personal information from seniors not just access to their bank accounts. If a scammer gets your senior parent’s information they can steal their identity. Having identity theft protection and monitoring can stop scammers from stealing the identity of your senior parent.