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Sunday
Nov012009

Why we started this blog

Both Lannie and I have personal experiences with fraud. Both were sad and frustrating. They were sad because they happened to family members who were close to us. They were frustrating because, with a little preventative maintenance, both could have been avoided. The victims of these crimes were my grandparents and Lannie's mother. 

  My grandparents had a very traditional relationship when it came to money. My grandfather managed their finances for their entire married life. Unfortunately, as they aged this situation became untenable. My grandfather began to have trouble focusing and simple tasks, such as paying their bills, became unmanageable. He began to lean more heavily on their live in caregiver to help him with these tasks. She started out simply helping him write cheques and balance his cheque book. Eventually, he gave her access to his credit cards. She used them to run simple errands. Unfortunately, she also used them to make her own purchases. Since she also paid the bills, her behavior went unnoticed. This continued until my grandfather passed away and my uncle became actively involved in managing my grandmother's finances. After reviewing her old bank statements he was suspicious about some of the bills he found. He confronted the caregiver and she confessed to the personal purchases she made. She was fired and because my grandmother was so upset no criminal charges were laid. This incident could have easily been avoided if my grandfather had allowed us to find a professional to help him manage his bills.

  Lannie’s mother was also the victim of fraud. One of her co-workers told her of a savings scheme that she had joined. In this scheme, each member put in a sum of money and each month one member of the group got to use the money. It was a means for each member to force themselves to save money. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a fraud. The woman who organized the scheme left town with all their money she had collected and my mother in law lost her investment. Fortunately this story has a small silver lining. She now contacts us if she receives any solicitations through the mail or telephone. She recently received one in the mail which had a cheque and claimed she had won a lottery.  Fortunately she called us and we were able to convince her that the cheque was fake. 

  These experiences left us with a desire to help others from being a victim of fraud. In future postings we will talk about the various types of fraud that occur and how to avoid them. We hope that our readers will find this information useful.

 

 

Reader Comments (2)

I really like this blog post, it has some great info. Thank you and keep up good work.

trading for a living

March 15, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertrading for a living

I really like this blog post, it has some great info. Thank you and keep up good work.

trading for a living

March 15, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertrading for a living

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