never ever put any personal info in social sites, about your self or family members. I know the world now revolves around facebook etc, but, so do predators. make your own private family blog site, (there are all kinds of free blog sites out there)family, not extended anybody/nobodys/ friend mes and dont include young kids because you must have passwords to access.

use skype or some such service to stay in contact with family.

turn off your house phone (and esp the phone for elderly family and get them those jitterbugs ).I cant tell you how many people called trying to get money out of the elderly people I watched who had alsheimers. I had a cellphone on me at all times, so I just finally unplugged the d- phones, cus it was aggravating them.

if they wont part with the phone find out if you can get a service where they can call out but there has to be a special way to call in - unlisted #s, and not everyone in the family has the # or whatever, so it doesnt get put out there for predatory types to grab. (but, I must say, since we dropped the house phone we never get any calls - 4 people have my #, hubs, 2 brothers, and 1 neighbor, before that we got at least 8 -10calls thru the day selling everything and asking for $$) Never ever ever put your phone # on anything in a contest online, on a form unless its for a dr or dentist

find out from the PO how to get on a list for no snail mail spam cus once theyre on that list they will find you over the phone. I can remember filling out something for the PO awhile back to stop junk mail

go to the bank and talk with someone on how to protect your accounts there.

and, in the end, people /strangers will be bold enough to walk right up to your door as try to scam - you MUST run them off, slam the door in their faces and call the police. We were at an Easter brunch , at least 14 of us and this guy came knocking, said his car broke down and could he have some cash - it was Easter after all - to get someone there to fix it. Hubs said he'd call the police for them, the guy practically tripped running down the drive and I got the tag # on the car and we called the police and they picked this CREW up the next block over pulling the same scam!

if you're totally worried about turning off elderly familys phones, put webcams thruout their house and keep an eye on them! Cheaper then them being taken for their life savings, and even if your across the country you can sleep nights not worrying. You just have a live feed to your computer. and, I wonder how those life alert type things really work, it looks like a good deal, you wear a button and for any emergency you push a button: police, medical, fire.

I know it sounds a little overboard, but these are hard times, and there are a lot of people out there working hard to take away your hard earned money! sharet

Contact the FBI immediately.

Since I commented on this, I saw on our local news featured an elderly couple that was out $20,000. The woman believed her youngest grandson was being held captive in Mexico, and so she wired money to help get him back to the US. Once other family members got involved, they confirmed the grandson was OK and not in Mexico, but by then the money was gone.

Tips they said- if the money goes to someone in the US, you have a chance to get the money back, but if it goes outside of the US, it's gone. Apparently, this is one of the hottest scams, people pretending to be a family member, often from collecting information from Facebook or other public sources. Yet another reason to shield outsiders from seeing your profile and limit what you say on the internet about yourself!!!

My mom changed the number for her mom- grandma is a sucker for anyone asking for money, and even charities were passing her # around. While my mom was visiting, Gma got several (legitimate) charity phone calls, and this bugged my mother so much that she decided to nip it in the bud! So, with the phone # changed, only family members knew the new number, and it was only given to legitimate sources, such as her doctor when necessary. It totally cut down on the solicitations for money taking advantage of an elderly woman who couldn't say no, ever.

This sounds like a job for Interpol to me. Here's one source:
http://www.interpol.int/public/mail/mail3.asp?id=info.
or fax: Fax: +33 (0)4 72 44 71 63

Here's another source for reporting crimes like this:
http://www.fraudaid.com/solution_cen...and%20intl.htm

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you

Disgusting lowlife! So sorry that happened to her. What goes round comes round...hope they catch the person.

I totally agree.

They should work like everyone else. Hate that has happened.

They are finding seniors for thier dirty work.