Talk to your loved ones about the CRA/IRA phone scam.

Or the IRS calling to say that they are going to have you arrested or other such nonsense. Unfortunately many of the elderly were "raised" or "brought up" to respect authority and when someone from the IRA or the bank or the sheriff's office call them, the elderly do what they are told. SIGH:(

LOL, I meant to type IRS DeeAnna.... too late to change it! Here in Canada it is the CRA (canada revenue agency), my brain was a little rusty this morning ;P

A new scam is making the rounds where I live. A person will call up saying they are from the electric company and they will be turning off your electricity unless you pay your outstanding bill of $300.

Then the caller instructs the person to go to a local grocery store and buy i-tune card or Apple card to which the person needs to call back and give the 16-digit code off the back of the card. Then those codes are re-sold on the black market.

I think clerks in a store should be alert and have their manager speak with an elder who is buying a lot of these i-tune cards. Even adults who are not seniors can get snagged in this scam.

Another scam is the "grandson" scam where a person who sounds young will call and say he is in trouble, and he needs money. My sig other answered the phone and decided to play along as he knew it was a scam.

Grandson: Hi Grandpa.
Sig Other: Hey, haven't talked to ya in awhile. How's it going?
Grandson: I just got out of the hospital, I am a little short.
Sig Other: You inherited that from your great-grandfather, he wasn't tall.
Grandson: No, short on money.
Sig Other: Short money? Never heard of short money
Well, that is how the conservation went until the scammer slammed the phone down.

The part that amazes me is that they don't question having to pay with iTunes cards, I wouldn't even know where to go to buy any!

Well I think this is a very old scam. I even heard about this since maybe 5 years ago. People need to know about this. I have just read some reports filed about similar scam at www.whycall.me/226-215-0225.html. We need to keep spreading the word about this scam, especially to our family.

The obvious giveaway from these IRS scams is the vocabulary, clearly not American based. Still, someone could easily become confused.

I just wish they weren't robo calls b/c I'd love to play with them. My father loved doing that. A former poster, Jude, I think was part of her screen name, wrote a superb post on how her mother with dementia would frustrate the scammers so much they gave up and d/c'ed the call. If I could find that post, I'd link to it.

FF, love that retort! Sometimes Dad would just keep repeating "abba dabba do!" The scammer gave up after a few repeats.

I still plan to get a submarine horn one of these days. Keeping my ear protectors need the phone, I'd give the scammers a few loud blasts.

We must be more vigilant, always check all the information that you are told, ask the names of the companies from which you are called. And I encourage you to add all the scammers to this database ukareacodes.org/.
Here it shows who the number is registered in and in which city is located, and most importantly you can leave a review. Usually, everyone writes how the scammers wanted to exchange money. It would be cool that there was a single database of numbers, but for now, we are using what we have.

I have received a phone call that my Caller ID identified as "Mosaic" (a faith-based organization serving people with intellectual disabilities) here in town and it was actually a person trying to scam me.

I have also had the IRS phones where they threaten to have the Sheriff Department arrest me if I do not pay money that day to _______.  Since there have been several articles about IRS scams in our local paper and I also know many of the Deputy Sheriffs, I just laughed this one off. 

Some of Mom's elderly friends don't answer the phone anymore until the answering machine picks up the phone call and the person calling starts to leave a message.  If it is someone they want to talk to, then they pick up the phone.  Or the elderly friends calls that person back.

I am even getting phone calls and texts on my cellphone from phone numbers that I do not know.   One text stated "When calling this phone please leave a voice message." -- as if I had sent a text to them FIRST-- HAH!!!