CAYO: TELEMARKETERS PREY ON THE ELDERLY
Problem gets worse as boomers age and number of people at risk of dementia soars
SI see no evidence any of these companies deliberately target the weak- minded, but nor do I see any sign they took steps to rein in what appear to be — to put it in the kindest terms — irresponsibly over- enthusiastic sales people.
he’s 82, she’s alone in the world, and her mind is slipping away. She’s also a sitting duck for fast- talkers.
Conversations with this woman, who still lives in her Point Grey home, sound like a short tape loop as she asks the same question or says the same thing over and over with no memory of it being said before.
“It wouldn’t take a very long conversation with this woman to understand that she’s very, very confused,” said Peter Silin, a consultant who manages geriatric care for this woman and other clients, and who tipped me to this story.
Yet at least three times in the past six months three different telemarketers from three different companies have signed her up for things she didn’t want or need.
Her story has an ending that is, if not exactly happy, then as good as can be expected in these circumstances.
In one instance, the man delivering the service — a furnace technician — left without payment when the woman’s caregiver, who was there at the time, explained the problem. So she got a free inspection, even though this wasn’t her telemarketer’s intent.
In a second instance, her legal trustee was able to get a refund for another furnace inspection by another company.
In the last and worst case, she had a $ 2,000 alarm system installed after agreeing to it first on the phone and then again when a sales rep followed up at her door. This despite already having an alarm system, and despite the new one being too complex for her to use.
Trustee Debra Thomas of TD Waterhouse Private Trust tells me the system took three days to install, so I find it hard to understand that no one from the company noticed something was amiss.
Sarah Cohn, the director of media relations for ADT, the big home and business security firm whose alarm system was involved, tells me she’s unsure if the sale was made by an ADT employee or someone working for one of the company’s 450 authorized dealers. She asked me for the woman’s name to check the case further, but I declined to provide it for the same reason I’m not using it in this column — because she is incapable of giving informed consent to have her circumstances made public.
Cohn did say, however, that ADT has protocols in place for its sales staff to try to avoid problems like this.
If companies don’t have such rules in place or, as in this case, if they sometimes don’t work, the law is hazy on what happens next. Thomas clearly has some legal grounds for seeking refunds — she became official trustee because the law recognizes the woman can’t manage her own money. Yet, she tells me, it was difficult to get through to anyone in the company who’d talk to her about the problem, although when she persisted and finally did she got a full refund and the system was removed.
So at this point, there’s no lingering injustice. Three companies are out of pocket, not paid for work that, in a better world, they wouldn’t have undertaken on the say- so of someone so obviously incapacitated. The woman isn’t out any money, and she’s not even embarrassed because she can’t remember what happened.
But important questions are left hanging. Among them:
• How did this happen? I see no evidence any of these companies deliberately target the weak- minded, but nor do I see any sign they took steps to rein in what appear to be — to put it in the kindest terms — irresponsibly over- enthusiastic sales people. So what could and should they have done differently?
• If this happened three times in six months to one woman, how often do similar things happen to others who are in, or almost in, the same boat? I know of no stats on this or any way to compile reliable numbers, but both my own experience and many people I talk to tell me it happens all the time.
• If a professional money manager with broad experience handling these kinds of situations has to push hard to solve this problem, what are the odds of it ending well when it’s left to non- professionals — say family members trying to look after things for Mom or Dad? And what about people who haven’t yet been declared legally incompetent to manage their own affairs but are nonetheless easy marks when they’re having a bad day?
• What’s a proper policy response to protect vulnerable people from aggressive pitches and opportunistic sales people, not simply from deliberate fraud?
• What will happen as baby boomers age and the number of old people at risk of dementia soars?
In some ways, fraud is easier to deal with than the grey area of sales people taking advantage within the letter of the law. When something is clearly criminal, someone — the Better Business Bureau, the Consumers’ Association of Canada, the cops — can issue an alert. And if the perpetrators can be caught, they can be prosecuted.
Staff training, policies requiring ethical behaviour — these things can help, but many companies already do them. And the track record indicates clearly that it’s not enough.
Buyer beware, the usual caveat for those who might fall victim to illegal or ethically questionable sales techniques, is a non- starter for victims of dementia. They are, simply put, incapable of being wary.
In B. C., trustee relationships are governed by antiquated legislation that is due to be replaced but has not yet been proclaimed. The new law will operate on the principle that trustees should do the least that is necessary to both preserve the client’s independence and prevent others from taking advantage of someone’s incapacity. The current law functions as more of an on- off switch, so it is more difficult to leave people with the vestiges of independence they need to live in the community while protecting them from their own bad decisions at the same time.
Thomas, who has been looking after money for such people for 30 years, has a few things in her bag of tricks that can help, at least for people who have turned over to her the power to manage their affairs. She can add an old person’s name to the Canada’s Do Not Call list for telemarketers, which reduces the number of calls, although it doesn’t eliminate them. She can lower a client’s credit card limit to cut the size of potential losses. And she can scrutinize their credit card and bank statements monthly, and pursue a refund of payments that weren’t properly authorized.
It also helps, she said, to have a phone with call display. This may let a senior screen out some calls, and it will certainly allow a caregiver to check periodically to see who has been calling and, if necessary, find out why.
But Thomas still sees the problem getting worse, especially in the last five or six years as more and more companies seem to be turning to telemarketing.
“The telephone is a lifeline for an isolated senior,” she said. “But for the con artist or unscrupulous seller, it’s a gold mine.”
Mark Fernandez, a communications and marketing specialist at the Better Business Bureau in Vancouver, said the problem of inappropriately aggressive sales looms large on his radar, and it’s not just seniors with dementia who are at risk.
“Sometimes seniors agree to something — even if they’re able- bodied and able- minded — simply because they’re worn down. They don’t want to be rude and hang up, and the caller has appealed to their charitable instincts, or maybe to their concerns about safety. So they say Yes just to get the caller off the phone.
“I can’t tell you how many people have called me because their parents have signed up for something they don’t want.” What’s the answer? No one I talked to sees a silver bullet in the offing, except maybe Thomas, who suggests a total ban on telephone sales would work — though she has no expectation this will ever come to pass.
Closer supervision of people like the Point Grey woman would no doubt also help, but finding the right level is greatly complicated by the need to leave people with as much dignity and independence as possible, as well as by the high cost of constant companionship.
I also think the law should be clarified and toughened to put the onus squarely on companies to obtain informed consent before they perform any service or provide any product. They should be required to provide easy- to- reach contact information that will readily connect customers or their representatives with someone whose job it is to solve problems like this one. And the current 10- day cooling- off period should be made flexible enough to accommodate legally appointed trustees who may not receive information on inappropriate sales in time to intervene quickly.
dcayo@ vancouversun. com