Ripping off old people

[ClaireNJ]

Originally Posted by Taffy1959

I’m so sorry this has happened to your mum and I hope she listens to everything you’ve said to her.

My dad was conned by some so called workmen saying he needed work doing on the extension flat roof.
I can’t remember exactly how much it was but it was a good few hundred.
I told him if anyone came knocking the door to tell them I dealt with all repairs which he agreed to do but I went there a couple of days later and there was a man in the living room who was selling tickets for some prize draw and my dad was handing over £20.
The worst though was a woman who was my mums carer (employed by the local council)and after my mum passed away she carried on visiting my dad and he handed over at least £8,000 to her.
It was only when neighbours told me she was still visiting that I found out she was still going there.
It took me some time to find out what was going on and I could only do something when my dad let it slip he was paying for a holiday for her that I was able to do something about it.

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I’m so sorry for your Dad ❤️
Our elderly relative had some men in her house, she’s bed bound & has a special needs daughter & when her back was turned they took a tin with £5K in it 😩😬😡
Needless to say she only has a couple of hundred pounds in the house now, for essentials.

[Taffy1959]

Originally Posted by ClaireNJ

I’m so sorry for your Dad ❤️
Our elderly relative had some men in her house, she’s bed bound & has a special needs daughter & when her back was turned they took a tin with £5K in it 😩😬😡
Needless to say she only has a couple of hundred pounds in the house now, for essentials.

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That’s just awful I honestly don’t know how people like that can live with themselves

I was just so glad I was able to put a stop to this woman and after I reported her to the local council it came to light that she was also visiting other people after their partners who she had been a carer to had died.
Think she had a nice little number going on until I spoilt it for her.

[OLS]

Can you not message the number (from your mums phone if that's what she contacted them on) saying "it's xxx from xxx address, I am wondering if you could pop back for a quote on repairing the fence and doing some more work in the back garden" then when they come you can be there and give them a piece of your mind! I know they probably won't rectify the shoddy work or return any of the money they ripped her off for but at least they will know someone is looking out for her and hopefully not return again!

[Cinderellas]

I am having the same problem with my elderly dad who lives 5 hours from me. He has recently had a diagnosis of dementia so is easy prey. Unbeknown to me an Irish speaking bloke has done several jobs for him and charged him excessive amounts. The neighbours warned me thank goodness.
I am now on his bank account and have transferred most of his money to his savings so he knows he has to go through me to have any work done. He has no online access and is too infirm to go to the bank.
It’s scandalous how these despicable people take advantage of the vulnerable 😡

[Floridatilly]

I definitely think trades people are charging more and more. My next door neighbour want a new patio laid. To remove old patio snd lay new they have been quoted £5.5k 🤯 thats NOT including the flags because they have already bought them.
My husband has just completed our patio so they wanted theirs doing. Now they have a drive full of flags and no one to lay them. They have asked my husband to do it (for free) and he said no 🙈 it took him three days to do ours and it nearly killed him off.
Ground work is such hard work. So I don’t think £800 is too much for the work your mum had done but I can’t tell properly from the photos how bad/good the completed work is. It looks ok, it can’t be level or it will be a swimming pool when it rains, it needs to taper down away from the fence which it seems to do. Have they left her with after care advice regarding the new turf? No mowing for x amount of time, it needs a good water daily for x amount of time or it will just die. You can get the information online if they didn’t give it to you. Turf cost has also gone through the roof 😪
My brother in law charges £200 + per day per person. Its him and his brother so a minimum of £400 a day, thats labour only. We are not far from you so I really don’t think your mum has been done cost wise (can’t comment on quality of work)

[Welsh_Dragon]

I am sure that everyone here has the best intentions, but please familiarise yourselves with the Mental Capacity Act, and be certain that by trying to protect your elderly relatives, you don’t inadvertently break the law. Capacity is presumed and issue specific, so unless they have been found to lack capacity in relation, for example, to finances, and you hold an LPA for finances, you should not, however well intentioned, be installing recording devices, transferring money between accounts etc.
Obviously if they have capacity and have given consent, that is fine.

[Eeyore14]

Sorry to hear this has happened to your Mum, my dad was nearly conned a few years ago by someone supposedly calling from Amazon and asking him to log into his computer, he was just about to follow the person’s instructions (which I assume would have enabled them to have remote access) when he realised it was a con and hung up. This was a real shock for him and since then he’s been a lot more assertive and realising it’s o.k to just hanging up when people call he doesn’t know.

[ClaireNJ]

I think this just shows that it’s very hard to protect our relatives, as we can’t be there all the time, the best thing is to not have huge amounts of cash in the house that they can readily hand over to unscrupulous people 🤞

[mickey house]

Very sorry to hear this but sadly there are no shortage of scumbags ripping people off.

My elderly mum has been ripped off in the past but I now deal with anything that needs doing in her house and I tell potential workman its my house. I even pay my mum’s gardener by bank transfer to save her over payinh him with cash (she thinks she has tip everyone).

[buryboy]

Originally Posted by Floridatilly

Ground work is such hard work. So I don’t think £800 is too much for the work your mum had done but I can’t tell properly from the photos how bad/good the completed work is. It looks ok, it can’t be level or it will be a swimming pool when it rains, it needs to taper down away from the fence which it seems to do. Have they left her with after care advice regarding the new turf? No mowing for x amount of time, it needs a good water daily for x amount of time or it will just die. You can get the information online if they didn’t give it to you. Turf cost has also gone through the roof 😪
My brother in law charges £200 + per day per person. Its him and his brother so a minimum of £400 a day, thats labour only. We are not far from you so I really don’t think your mum has been done cost wise (can’t comment on quality of work)

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I can see how some people would say it’s not that excessive . And it is hard work .
But it took three men half a day to do the work so that on your figures of £200 a day ( which I agree is a sensible figure ) , that would be £300 for labour .
Turf certainly I wouldn’t have thought more than £50 based on last years prices but even if £100 now , that only makes £400
So she has been charged double that .

The charge was ‘ sold to her ‘ based on it being a two day job ( still 3 people I believe but maybe only 2 ) plus topsoil and digger hire which just didn’t happen