Posted on 08/18/2022 7:46:02 AM PDT by fwdude
A little background. My elderly singe mother lives locally, in her own home alone, with daily check-ins by relatives, household employees and friendly neighbors whom she compensates for help with her care.
A few years ago, she was contacted by someone who identified themselves as a Census worker. She was requesting financial information a little more detailed than the decennial census would require. Mom says that the lady paid her a personal visit to help her fill out the form. My mom is very kind and tender-hearted, which makes her a little blind to scams and quite naïve about many things. So, she accommodated this lady, who mom described as "very nice," and even showed her some of her financial documents. That was alarming enough, but mom said that she made a follow-up visit to go over her information.
I didn't think much about this until recently, but now I'm freaking out. I keep a pretty close watch over her accounts and finances and haven't noticed anything suspicious, but I'm beginning to think that her secure identity been compromised.
What is the best course of action to take at this point?
Have you pulled a credit report?
This happened to me about a year ago. Someone may know but there is a special census that is very detailed and although rare it happens. Someone eft6 cards on my door fr a few weeks trying to contact me. I will see if I can locate the details.
Have you done a credit freeze thru the three companies, equifax, and cant think of other 2?
Since they’re impersonating a federal official, I’d think that the federal government may get interesting.
Maybe get the FBI involved, but be sure to tell them that she hates Trump if you want them to do anything about it.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
The American Community Survey, iirc is the group that came to my house. They were relentless ad questions were very intrusive, but as I understand it the is rare, but to happened to me...
TransUnion and Experion.
Trans-Union and Experian.
Credit Karma will give you ongoing free credit reports in exchange for customized offer advertising on their web site.
Experian likes to do theirs direct and will try to sell you “services”.
report this immediately to the police and her financial institutions. I’d also look to set up a durable power of attorney with a relative(s) she trusts.
No, and that is an excellent idea. I'll do it tonight.
Uh, no thanks.
Thanks.
Alert the banks and credit cards to have them watch out for unusual activity, explain why. Both should know her normal activities by now.
Alert social security also to see what they can do.
Off the top of my head her finances need to be secure.
Seniors who are not financing anything do not need open credit reports. We found my late MIl’’s credit was being probed, so we “froze” it. You can unfreeze it when or if needed in future, also. We keep ours frozen.
The constitutionality of the ACS is questionable.
contact her banks, transfer to new accounts, and get new credit cards.
It’s a pain to update all your automatic bills, but I do that every year or 2
Someone came to our house as well. We were informed by mail by the US Census bureau. Questions about crime in our area. There was several more visits for several months after that. The last two were by phone. Was that your experience? This was in 2019, I believe.
I would enroll her in a credit protection program like Life Lock. And probably look at a house title lock program as well. Title theft is growing rapidly.
I can’t help you, but I can relate. A “census worker” arrived and asked a few questions and we probably volunteered too much. We have two homes, each in different states. Of course, we only vote in one state. I wonder if someone is now voting in our name in the other state.
Do census workers carry identification?
Don’t forget that mom needs a new power of attorney to ensure no one made a new one.
My sister told my mom I was dead and made mom sign a new one and cleaned her out before putting her in a home.
You are good family!
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