My parent is giving way too much to charities. How can I stop this?

Charities will not remove names. The people who do these things are in the business of raising funds. You can address it with your parent and let them know they cannot afford to do it. Is your parent still competent? If so, then there is not much you can do other than talk to him. Do you have his POA for finances? If you do and you think that he is not competent to handle his own money, you can make it so where most of his money is not available to him. This will start a war, but sometimes someone needs to take measures to stop charity donations.

I often feel that charity fundraisers have hearts of stone. They can target people who are older because they tend to give more money than others. Then they can put people on a "sucker list" if they give a donation. They sell this list to other charities. Someone who gives once may find himself the target of multiple charities looking for money.

I dealing with this issue with my Dad also. He has dementia and has been giving out his credit card info over the phone. So far the charges are small but once these creeps score they keep calling cause they know they have an easy mark.

I've had limited success calling the bank and the so called called charities to get the charges reversed even though I have financial POA. Ultimately my only choice if this continues will be to get the charge card away from him and supply him with just enough cash to get by. It will be ugly but it may have to be done. I'd rather have him pissed off than squander thousands on these crooks.

If your father is "competent" in the legal sense, alas, he can make any decisions he wants and spend his money as he pleases. Your best recourse is to convince him to stop giving or to give less. Would it work to decide with him how much he can afford to give each month, pick one charity, and set that up as an automatic payment? Could he remember that he did that and say no to other requests? If he agrees that he needs to limit his giving but has a hard time saying no, perhaps he would agree to have his telephone number changed, which would stop at least some of solicitations for a while.

If the dear generous man is not competent to make decisions in his own best interests and you have his POA, then you have a lot more flexibility to do things like limit the funds he has access to.

I have had the same problem with my mom. And believe me, she can't spare a penny. But she still sends money. I have been able to intervene a few times. The last one she was sending $20 to some guy so that he would pray for her. UGH! I was able to stop one. It's so frustrating when just $20 can make or break her. She has nothing to spare. She has probably 40-50 pieces of mail a month asking for money to win money or folks wanting money. I don't think there is anyway to stop it once a person's name is on the mailing lists.

Here's how I put a stop to the solicitations: a Post Office Box and a change of address form! Nothing more will come to the house, and you, the dear child, will be able to intercept the bad mail that is arriving.

You will also be able to call the cc companies and request a new card number be sent to the PO box. You will then have a cc in the name of parent, but the old one won't work. When you go out with gramps, you can supply a prepaid card that you pay for out of the checking account.
This requires that you have your name on checking as POA. Get gramps to the bank before he is completely out of his wits, as the bank has to have original signatures on their own forms - brokerage houses also. Don't make these joint accounts, but POA accounts so that you can pay the bills. "if he's in the hospital, or if the property taxes come due and he is unable to find the bill."

If you are the agent under your father's power of attorney, you might consider taking away the checkbook and the credit cards and substituting a credit card available from True Link Financial. That prepaid debit card can be programmed to only buy certain things and only be used at certain stores. You can receive a printout of purchases.

I had the same problem with my father. It was an absolute nightmare. I called them and wrote them and for the most part put a dent in all of it, but he had gotten on the sucker list.Once you are on there, unfortunately, it is for life. Reagans Ranch was the worse, they were asking for thousands of dollars on a weekly basis, they are vultures. So, I checked his mailbox everyday hundreds of letters and threw them out. It is all you can do.

I'm so very sick of the vultures who prey on the vulnerable. The "sucker list"... yet another challenge set to drain. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, so take it for what it is, but do names get taken off these lists if it is reported to these fundraisers that their target I mean donor, has passed? (even though I read above they don't remove names..)
For any Cdns, it was refreshing to see the recent show they did on the many challenges with redeeming airmiles... along with their coverage of the one person who complained to the gov't, the laws were recently changed in ON.. this enforced the conglomerate to ease their rules)
Squeaky wheel gets the grease. This is a topic that needs public discussion. Lets be like the guy in Ontario who enabled fairness for all of Canada with one issue.
Different situation, but hopes as just one complains, then another... willfully sucking money out of those who's brains are incapable of proper decision-making is a vile act & should be made illegal.

Forgot... the show is called Marketplace - Canadian consumer advocates for over 30 years.

This was also happening to my Mother. Sometimes she got three requests for money in a day from the same charity. Some days she got requests from them thanking her for agreeing to pay a certain amount yet I live with her 24/7 and the phone never rang.i do have POA and my name is on her bank accounts. To stop this I typed up a generic letter that basically states that my Mother only has so much to give and that she has decided it was to be her church instead of all the solicitors. I went on to say that since you called and asked for funds and with my Mother having dementia that she doesn't remember the phone call anyway. (She said she doesn't remember the call but since they sent a letter she must have agreed and felt obligated to pay it) but as I stated some of these letters are robot generated and her phone never rang. I stated in the letter that she cannot afford to pay everyone who asks or she would be in financial trouble and I realized that this put the charity in a bind with their numbers but it also puts her in a bind with numbers. I made clear that the solicitations must stop and that if she received any more phone calls or letters that they would be ignored. Every time she got a letter I intercepted it and sent a photo copy of the solicitation and my generic letter. This has worked well as her phone calls have dramatically decreased and so has the solicitation letters. It did take a while but it worked. The worst was from Mothers against drunk driving as they wasted a lot of paper and postage sending her letters. I did type a letter to the director of MADD once and admonished them, but never received a reply. I have a total of 16 letters from them alone and there are only 12 months in a year. That is more than one a month from one charity!!
This tactic did work as her mailbox has little to no solicitations and her phone definitely rings less. I understand this may not work as well for others who do not live with their parent, but other tactics of using a p.o. Box to divert their mail would work well also. It really is a shame that you have to do these things to keep your loved ones from predators, but my tactic worked well I haven't had to send any letters for a few months now. i hope this helps

We dealt with this too, with my FIL who thought he'd be the next Publishers Clearing House winner! We were living with him, so I snagged his mail once he went to bed. I found his hiding places! I wrote over 75 letters, which my hubby signed as his POA. Letters said he had died. Yes, it was a fiblet, but the letters stopped, for the most part. We even got a few condolence letters. I still laugh about it, but it was a pain in the tush at the time! P.O. box is a great idea, or change of address to your place. Good luck!!!

Charities ....i've seen charities give only one fourth or even one eighth of what they receive to an actual cause....every time one of them calls me I asked them are you getting paid an hourly wage… They always say yes… I say what and when would my money kitchen to giving to the suppose "need...after I pay yours and how many others salaries… Or vacation homes or sports cars… Anyway it's already been said if your father has not been deemed incompetent there's not much you can do about him spending his money… So you need to work on reducing the amount of hands reachin into his wallet. And unlike someone else on here I would never spend any time writing a wonderful letter… I would actually threaten them with harassment. You can do that with ought being poa. And are you his poa?? ... another thing that's on my mind… All these questions pop up and the poster rarely gets back to indulge more information, for instance are you your father's POA? Has he been deemed incompetent? I mean those are very typical facts that should be placed within your own question … So I wonder if many of these questions aren't baited by the site.

...s15B3h3.... I totally dig what you did that's an awesome response to that issue funny but yet very effective I love it

Does your father have dementia? If not, then he can distribute his money the way he wants.

I get Mom's ail for her. What I do is take the charity letters, open them up for mailing stickers, a nickel or dime pasted inside, calendars, note pads, she even got a pair of socks asking for donations. I feel bad these charities are sending money and merchandise and have a cost for postage but I do not believe in wasting anything. Mother liked the attention she got from these charities. We have fun with the presents. Mom gave enough over the years. She now has to take care of herself. I get her mail for her and we keep the good stuff, say a prayer for the people and animals these agencies help period. She missed sending them money at first but now doesn't even ask. The requests for donations has dwindled. She no longer keeps her check book. Good luck.

I have posted this before on a different stream. This is what has worked for us. My 84 year old husband has Vascular Dementia, diagnosed May 2015.
He routinely brings in the mail. So beating him to the mailbox is not part of the solution. He usually listens to me when I tell him those are SCAM letters, and need to go into the trash.
Now for the phone calls:
We both have android cell phones. I took our phones to the shop and asked a tech person to do this:
The only time his phone RINGS is when me, my children or his children initiate a phone call. All other phone calls he get are silent, do not even vibrate the phone. He keeps his phone in its holster on his belt. Thank God.
Every evening I check his phone and delete all the SPAM calls he received. Sometimes there are as many as SIX. If I have time, I put those numbers on a reject list.
So far this has worked. So far.
Oh, and also, as he is still able to drive, but SHOULD NOT, (he gets lost) and sometimes gets into his pickup truck and leaves without telling me, I am able to track him with a gps device on his phone. I have had to go find him before 2 towns away. As long as his phone is charged up, and he is wearing it, I can keep up with him. He is VERY physically fit. He walks 2 to 3 miles a day, up and down hills. I am 74 and can barely keep up with him.

Oh God, I know this one all too well! I told her when she retired she could not afford to keep giving to all these charities. They get your name and when you contribute, they SELL your name to other charities hence why you get every charity known to man sending you stuff. Mom is such a softy but I gently told her she was now on a fixed income and could not afford it. Yes I have POA over everything and so I called or e-mailed the charities ome by one telling them mu Mom was no longer able to afford giving them anymore money and her mental capacities were hindered. That worked for most of em, now if I get anymore I just put them in the trash. I also warned her there was a lot of scammers who call and target the elderly and to not answer the phone unless she knew who was calling her (caller ID) so that scared her against answering strange callers. Last but not least, I took her credit cards, check book so she could no longer have the ability to even call KQED and pledge her little heart away. I also have a brother who kept extorting money from her everytime he showed up so another reason I took her cards and check book away. I make sure she has all she needs but people can be suckers for anyone who gives them a sob story and get these sweet elderly folks to open up their wallets. You gotta take charge, and hope you have POA so legally you can make the judgement call if you feel they are not mentally able to make the smart financial decisions on their own. As a side note, when I was on the phone with one of the charities, I asked if they sold their clients names to other charities and she said "YES!" They are shameless.

Trying to step in to protect your parents' finances is sure to start a battle, but it's a battle worth fighting. I'm speaking from experience. I won the war too late to protect his life-savings (it's all gone), but at least he's not racking up massive credit card fees and overdraft fees every month. I initially used a wonderful 'credit card' called True Link, so he could still tap the ATM and use it as a charge card. We could block any retailer (or in your case charity) so that the card wouldn't work. You can block individuals or categories. You can block online purchases, too. You set up transfers to the card so there's only the amount of money on it that you're budgeting.

Eventually though, it became apparent that he really couldn't understand anything about budgeting, so we started just giving him cash several times a week. That's worked very well. It was a long, miserable fight though.

Mother was put on a "cash only" basis many years ago when dad was alive and he was aware she was sneaking money to my oldest brother on the sly. Made dad furious. He made her then account to him every cent she spent, after 50 years of her running the household accounts! But it did make her stop and think: "I only have X amount for groceries and if I give "C" $200 I won't have any grocery money at all!" She still slipped him a few bucks every time she saw him, but after he realized his cash cow had stopped giving, he stopped coming around.
She still pays the major bills with a check, but my POA brother gets a cc of her bank acct each month. She can buy what she wants, but on a limited income and with many, many meds that require huge co-pays..she's limited.
She gets a ton of mail everyday. Used to get tons of calls, too. Some years ago I showed this trick: You ask the caller of the charity to tell you what percentage of what they raise goes to the actual charity. (By law, they HAVE to disclose this.) Then I ask for a printed invoice of their contracts. By then they have usually lost interest in you.....but that also makes sure they likely won't call again. AND many charities actually end up giving ZERO of what they raise, since the workers are paid FIRST.
Mother recently got a cell phone which she doesn't know how to use at all, so the scammers quit calling her. We can't get to mail before she does, she greets her mailman with a handful of "Hershey's Kisses" each day. She does get a TON of stuff begging for money in the mail, but luckily, I was able to explain to her that they were no better than telemarketers and to choose where to spend her "charitable" funds. I also have been known to toss her "begging for money" mail in the recycle bin before she sees it. About all we can do--everyone has to figure out this on their own, what works with their folks.

If you are in USA you can go to
https://dmachoice.thedma.org
to opt out of all these junk mailings. You can also go to https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email
To get info on how to opt out of other kinds of communication. I've done this for myself as well and really get very few mailings. When I do, I call the organization and tell them to take my name off their list, which they are required by law to comply. Hope this is helpful.

Same thing here. Got a PO Box and it filled within 3 days with junk charities. The PO told me to go to www.dmachoice.org and it should stop some of the junk mailers and charitiy mailers.

These charities call me; I tell them they're not getting squat, and hang up. Simple as that. And if they come knocking on my door, I tell them to get their nicklesick bones out of here

DCMom, thanks for those links. I just checked them out and will try them to see what I can get deleted; my father gets a handful of junk mail on a regular basis. I intercept it when I go out, but on the days I don't visit, all the junk mail manages to get inside the house and sometimes gets responses.

Once he agreed and I wrote letters which he returned, advising that he has no money. Still, like certain undesirable insects, they kept coming.

On the second link you posted, there's a blurb about the Dept. of Motor Vehicles and limitations on information it releases. It's slightly inaccurate, at least for Michigan, which releases voter information to political parties. It doesn't release actual voter preferences, but does release information on who voted and when.

One of the solicitations I got from the Democratic Party provided a list of my neighbors who voted and those who didn't! I was so furious, but calling did absolutely nothing b/c according to the person with whom I spoke, they're required by law to release the names of people who voted and who didn't. Likely some politician(s) made sure they could get access to this voter information.

So from then on, when I got more solicitations, I contacted the candidate (if I could locate him/her - most of the individuals didn't even post phone numbers) and told them they would lose my vote b/c of the harassment. And I didn't vote for them!

Once I spent quite a bit of time collecting so-called charities' e-mails and sent e-mails to a few dozen of them. A few stopped, but most of them just ignored the e-mails.

I'm trying something different now; I'm going to call them and ask them how much money they can send me or what they can do for me, and pretend that I thought that's why they're sending me solicitations.

If they try, as did Doctors w/o Borders, to override my demand for no more solicitations, I'm going to start railing on how poor I am and keep telling them I thought they wanted to give ME money. And I'll keep calling, moving up the chain of command until I annoy some exec. who might just get the message and take my name off their lists.

Oh, Jude a/k/a Phoenix Daughter had an excellent way of dealing with phone calls solicitations. She gave the phone to her mother, who has some level of dementia if I recall correctly. The repetitive and roundabout, circuitous responses was very discouraging even to aggressive callers and they hung up.

So I tried that; it's a fun way to annoy telemarketers.

Boy of boy. This is how I found out how bad my mother's dementia was. She would get about 40 to 60 pieces of junk mail a day and would send multiple checks to everyone and anyone. She was very proud of the fact, that she could pay her bills. She could no longer distinguish what was a bill or not. If there was an amount due, she would pay it. Myself and others talked to her until we were blue in the face, but it did no good. The logic and reasoning in her brain didn't work anymore.

Does your dad have dementia? Do you have POA?

I got a PO Box. I explained the situation to the local post office and they worked with me. When the mail stopped coming, she freaked out, because it became her job. Every day, she would look forward to the mailman coming and she would go through her mail for hours. It was like an addiction. She also started to hide the mail from me.

Also I talked to the local bank manager and they were very concerned about mom, she had multiple issued with overdrawing etc. If you have POA - you may want to get access to dad's accounts.

Anything that had a return prepaid envelope, I would send back stating that she wasn't contributing. It actually took about 1 year for the junk to stop.

A few years ago, I discovered my mother was "tithing" to an excommunicated "pastor" who occasionally preached in a room in the apartment bldg. Several hundred a month and she could ill afford it. Trying to discuss it with her led into us not speaking in over 2 months as she insisted she knew exactly how to handle her money. Well, she didn't and never was able to even when she was young...owed thousands!!!

Anyway, to try and make this a shorter story, I took over paying her bills two years ago and brother is POA and she is running short on funds. If it comes down to it, she will be in a Medicaid run facillity.

Whatever you can do to stop this spending before it gets worse, just do it........

My 88 yr old mother did this a few yrs back-gave more to charities than she should have, but wouldn't give to Humane Society or SPCA because she was sure they would send her a cat or dog! So there are a "few" reasoning problems there. She was also doing heavy spending on Publishers Clearing House mailings that she got--$400-500. When I saw that I started getting those items and sending them all back. (Went online and got junk mail stopped.)She would not give up her checks to me-I am her daughter and have POA for her. It took the man on the phone with "such a nice voice" who promised her a new car and chance of winning millions of dollars. She sent him all the money, $5000, she had left in her savings account. Not a lot to some but that was her cushion for any emergencies she might have. By the time she told me what she had done the check had cleared and it was gone. Also she gave him her bank, credit card information as well. I also intercepted a packet of bank papers for a ready to sign mortgage application on her paid off home-for another $42,000. He was able to get $14,000. off her credit card. The bank forgave half of it and she is having to pay off the remaining $7000.
I would caution that you need to get his checking account, credit cards away from him and in your control ASAP. These scammers are heartless and don't care if their stories for help or promising the moon leave your loved one out in the street.
My mother can now see how wrong that was to give her money away but now way too late. (I had talked many times to her about giving her personal information away to someone over the phone.)
I would say don't wait till it's too late after someone has talked him out of everything he has with a good story.

Thanks, Tired1of4 😎

Didn't know charities won't remove u from their mailing list. Is there a self addressed envelope included. Then send it back with all the stuff the charity sent. Circle the address and write delete me off ur mailing list. Do this enough and the mailings will stop. Like the idea of a Po box and a debate card that can only be used for certain purchases.

Fund-raising is a huge business with a heart of stone. Usually people are dealing with fundraisers, instead of volunteers with organizations. The fundraisers make their money by talking people out of theirs. Fundraisers for organizations like the National Humane Society take so much for themselves that Fido only gets a few cents on the dollar. Woof. It is better to hand your local humane society a check. Professional fundraisers don't care if someone has dementia or poor health. Being old and confused deserves its own list. There is a 80+ mailing and phone list for fundraisers. There are lists for people who have had different maladies. It's scary how much information is available for the compilation of lists. I don't even give anymore except locally. I give to animal rescues and I can't pass by a Salvation Army ringer without putting a bill in. I donate to programs aimed at feeding animals and people who need it, and know that almost every bit of the money goes for what it is intended.

Stepping down off soapbox now.