I'm Back!

[Bluebonnet_Gal]

I don't know if I was even missed, but I'm back!

As some of you may remember, my family went through a very difficult time when a cousin committed suicide. As the family investigates what might have caused this very sudden and unexpected action, they've found they that medication may have played a role. They are waiting on toxicology reports from the autopsy.

Then I started having computer problems. I could barely keep my computer on - it would just restart itself randomly with no warning. After running virus and malware programs, finding that they removed "good stuff" that I needed, restoring my computer several times, it's working better now.

Because of the computer problems, I have not been downloading my results daily anymore. Infact, I haven't downloaded in several weeks, but I want to start again. At least take a look at the last few weeks and see what's been going on!

To top it all off, I recently bacame a brand new UsBorne Books & More Consultant. So time online has been devoted to learning about Usborne and gathering tools I need to get my sideline business rolling.

Then last week, my family found out my MIL had been roped in by a scammer. That lead to a huge ordeal the past few days to try and protect my in-law's life savings (some of it is already gone and I'm sure they'll never get it back). If anyone has experience dealing with a parent who was roped in by scammers and has any advice how to protect them and how to convince them to not fall for it again, please PM me as any advice would be appreciated!

I hope everyone here is doing well. What did I miss? I'm going to try to be active again!

Gail

[JoyD.]

Good to see you back BBGal I HAVE missed you . . . in fact there seem to be a lot of "regulars" who have been missing lately. I thought maybe people are caught up in gardening or vacationing.

Sounds like you were side-tracked many times over!

Yes, scammers are coming out of the woodwork these days and getting worse every day! Their biggest target appears to be the elderly So sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.

Hope things settle down for you now!

Joy

[mdbarthe]

Welcome back, BBG!

Sadly, I know of nothing that will prevent the elderly from being scammed. If you can talk them into giving you power of attorney over their checking and savings account and all other asset control, then you might have a shot at it. Catching the evildoers is very difficult. Most of them are from out of the country and getting International law enforcement agencies to enter into long-term cooperative investigations is very difficult. Usually by the time a phone call is traced or an address is tracked down, the scammers have moved or ditched the phone they were temporarily using.

I had an uncle that got ripped off for thousands and thousands of dollars in such scams. In fact, when we finally got on to what was going on, we found the entire top of his dining room table about 2 feet deep in phony sweepstakes letters and luxury cars he had "won" (he only had to pay the $2,000 sales tax and they would ship the car to him from overseas), etc.

He just couldn't believe the nice people on the phone and authors of the letters were taking him for his money.

[DyannaK]

Welcome back BBG I am sorry to hear about your MIL Scammers are everywhere it seems, I hope you get things straightened out...

[Sleepy Boy]

Hi Gail: Glad to see you back. You were the first one that gave me some advice when I first came on this site... Larry...