Splitting this out into a new thread. The following should probably be the OP. But I’ll leave things sequentially.
My post which started the conversation follows.
/EDIT
Not deplorable, but definitely a “dealing with family” situation.
Went round to visit my dad. 82. Losing his memory. Lives alone.
Walked in to find him on the phone to some scammer in India in the process of setting up phone banking on his phone.
After telling the scammer to fuck off. Quickly check history and email on his computer and phone.
Hes downloaded some remote desktop software on his PC, and two on his phone.
Hes downloaded and activated the online banking app on his phone.
there’s a bunch of activation emails from western union where he’s set up an account.
there’s some spammy “amazon” web form where it asks for your bank details to process a refund.
There’s 2 pending payments for zero dollars to western union??
Mrs rugby was there. We phone both western union and his bank and shut absolutely everything. I do a factory reset on his phone and check his PC to see if anything was installed. I dont think so. I change his email password.
As far as I can tell they didn’t take any money. And I think with all his cards and online banking shut down he should be okay now.
He was on the phone for nearly an hour. As far as I can tell, the scammer was foiled by the impossibility of getting my dad to do anything quickly on the computer while trouble shooting remotely. My dad insists on using linux, so that probably helped.
I’m just super worried I’ve missed something and some fucking scammer in India is somehow taking his money as we speak.
Kitboga fucks with these people daily on his twitch streams. Worth the watch if you’ve never seen how the scams work and good entertainment usually even if you have. He started doing it because one of his grandparents got scammed I believe.
Man I’m glad you got there when you did. Sounds like you took all the proper steps. My parents are fully with it (65 & 71) but anytime they answer the phone for an unknown number when I’m near them and proceed to do anything other than troll the caller, I stare them down to make sure they know not to say or do anything dumb. I worry whats going to happen in another 10 years though.
Gotta check out Jim Browning on YT when it comes to scamming. The guy reverses the connection and hacks their computers. He also intercepts ongoing scams and attempt to stop them before it’s too late.
Actually made sure to show my mother the video of the scam. She’d probably hear the accent and get all racist about it. That’s why Jim’s latest video about training homely sounding white people is going to be so effective. It gets past the racism and into their accounts
These days I can definitely empathize more with old folks falling for this stuff. I mean with a lot of them the ignorance of technical stuff is part of what works against them, which hopefully I’m largely immune to, but I’m starting to see how even mild cognitive stuff would make them more likely to go along with whatever.
Like I think about my normal middle-aged forgetfulness that creeps in, and the way I’ll get reminded of something at work or an appt for one of my kids that I clearly forgot about, and jump right to that defensive/fake sort of “yeah of course I remember that when was it again? Uh huh yeah I’m on that right now, just finishing this other thing” or whatever. I can only imagine when your memory really starts to go everything seems like that, and when some rando calls you talking sternly about an urgent thing with your bank acct, your first instinct is to think “oh shit I must have really fucked something up, I’m so embarrassed. OK, self, be cool and pretend you know what’s going on and let this dude fix it”.
I think elder care is really a huge issue that most of us will deal with or have dealt with, and it really doesn’t get the amount of attention or discussion it deserves. Medicine is better, so people stay okay physically and live longer, but its hard to prevent mental decline. My mom passed away at 96, and I spent the last several years of her life taking care of her. Thankfully, she retained her pleasant disposition even as her cognitive abilities faded away. Its a trippy experience for caregivers, and I suppose for the patient too.
Old Man Rugby was a computational chemistry professor. Using computers since 1958 when he was studying at Oxford and they used punch cards.
He has super strong opinions on computers. He insists on using linux. Insists on using some complicated text based email program which uses command line type controls, and refuses to put any apps on his phone because “phones are phones! They are for calling people!”
This was mildly annoying but kind of cool when he had the full working brainpower of a chemistry professor. Less cool now.
Trying to remotely trouble shoot his zoom calls on linux when they wouldn’t work was one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever had to do. It took weeks. It actually gives me some sympathy for the hacker who spent an hour with him and got no where.
Another cool Old Man Rugby story. He recently got awarded “wikipedia’s Editor of the week” globally when he retired his admin privileges. In recognition of 16 years of editing, with 30000 edits and 150 new pages.
Yeah. I think there was some of that. But he also would have forgotten the start of the call by a few minutes in and now he’s just on the phone with someone telling him things to do.
His browser history actually showed he’d opened up a lot of links on “common western union fraud” which he may have had to do while setting up the account, but may have been him having a glimmer of mistrust for a while.
Watching him try and figure things out with the few things he does remember plus whatever he has written down is like watching the movie Memento but for slightly lower stakes.
We could. I feel like formatically it could be like an “ask me anything” about caring for an elderly parent. There are quite a few facets to it as you go through the journey, but there aren’t that many timely newsy kinds of updates like some topics. And every case is different, but maybe some folks could glean a few things they may find interesting.
I think there’s probably a few folks who are/will deal with it. So maybe just a general “Dealing with aging parents” thread. I could split out the current set of posts to start it off, then you could weigh in with your stuff.
My mother’s boyfriend got crushed by a tractor about a week ago. Had to get airlifted to a hospital and recently had 8 hours of surgery to repair all of his ribs and fix a collapsed lung.
Miracle he’s alive. The description my mother gave didn’t make the logistics perfectly clear and she was in no place to go into detail but he did survive. Wonder what therapy will be like for him.
That’s the first sign. OMG. But seriously, the forgetfulness really is one of the first signs. My mother lived til 96. I moved in with her when she was 85 and her memory was starting to go then. Its kind of hard to know when to intercede in their lives. You obviously can’t wait until they are completely helpless. I was lucky that my mom was not tremendously stubborn and recognized that her memory was going bad. At first, you’re just there in their house, and not much caregiving is needed. Over time, more and more is needed, and over the last few years of her life, you were always on duty. Trust me, you get accustomed to doing things that you never thought in your life you would have to do for your parents. You also get a deep appreciation for the people (mainly immigrants) who take these caregiving jobs and perform them with compassion and kindness. I think it was $43 an hour once a week for help with her shower. Over time, we went to two hours a week, and then three. I guess some people require even more help. Doctors can prescribe aides and physical therapy and it can be free for a period of time through Medicare, but that eventually runs out and you have to pay out of pocket until the next time when you can get the doctor to prescribe some help.
Living situation is a tough one. He owns his home (small mortgage) but it’s small. One small spare bedroom. Certainly no room for me and Mrs Rugby even if that’s what we wanted.
He’d talked previously about going into a home, but he would need one that would give him space for his books and his computer. He spends much of his day on the computer.
Complicated again by the fact that if/when we have kids, we may want to move back to the Philippines.
I read somewhere that with failing memory you want to get them settled in their location sooner rather than later, otherwise they are always in a state of not knowing where the fuck they are, which sounds horrible.
