Does this sound dodgy to you….

[Flyingsatsuma]

My partners mum lives very close by - 96 but living alone and independent and we give her a lot of support. She is on her GP’s housebound list and is down to have the covid spring booster at her home.

Last Thursday, she got a call from, supposedly, someone at the surgery saying that someone would be coming to give her an injection the next day and that she would need to be in after 10am. She was a bit worked up about it, but my partner went over to see her just before 10am to explain things and give her some reassurance - she had her first booster at home and it was fine. He assumed the nurses or HCAs would arrive any time and so left her to wait for them coming.

Anyway, nobody arrived. MIL was very annoyed since nobody phoned her to say why and she had spent all day expecting them. But we thought, no big deal, they are busy etc.

Something didn’t feel right about it so I phoned the surgery on the Monday and they couldn’t shed any light other than she was on the housebound list and the team would eventually get round to her, but there was no record of anyone phoning her from the surgery, but they could have phoned from a mobile.

I was questioning her about it today and she was able to tell me a bit more detail - that the woman who phoned was very insistent about her being in the house after 10am and kept asking if she wasn’t going out anywhere. In the end, MIL saw the funny side of this since she hasn’t left the house for well over a year hence being on the housebound list! Apparently, the woman also said that it would not be her “usual nurse” but a different lady who was trained to give injections, and that MIL needed to know that she was allowed to let her in. Actually, there are no “usual” nurses at our local surgery as it’s huge - there are dozens of nurses and HCAs and you see whoever. I cannot make any of this add up.

She has been plagued with bank scam phone calls for the past couple of weeks which she is just about coping with, sometimes several times a day. And someone came to the house a few days before the vaccination phone call. She says they let themselves in from the keysafe and wanted to know what covid jabs she had had, even looking through her stuff for the paperwork. They tested her personal alarm and were looking through her care file. We thought it might be a manager from the care agency or social services but we are still none the wiser.

Am I right to be a bit worried that she is on a scammers hit list??

Another who’d call the police. I’d also try to be around as much as I could for the next few weeks.

The issue with this is most care agencies (quite rightly) won’t accept keys. There are lots oF different kinds of key safes available

During the first wave of Covid injections I did hear of elderly people being injected ( presumably with water) and payment demanded, £50 I think. Possibly it was going to be this type of scam and your DPs car on drive put them off.
Nocare worker should have walked in and gone through paperwork.
Check outside the property for any marks on drive, walls, pavement that would indicate her house to scammers.
Call police, Ring doorbell and change the key code. Most Covid 4th jabs have been given to people aged 90+, though some areas might be later than others, so perhaps try to get this arranged ASAP as it’s one less scam can be pulled.

OP, I would contact her local police team/PCSOs and also Age Concern (or eqivilent) This is as everyone has said very worrying, my initial thought was either they want to accompany her to the bank to make a large cash withdrawal ( but then read you’ve said she’s housebound) or that they are targeting the house itself.
does she own it? Some banks will put a marker on her account so they won’t just give out large withdrawals too although my knowledge isn’t up to date on this.

would the surgery as a safeguarding issue contact you when they need to send someone around? They need to step up if the callers are saying they are from the surgery, of course it’s even possible they are but are targeting her because of their inside knowledge.

I used to work in the NHS and I could believe the call about the vaccine was real, my friend runs a community service that’s doing vaccines for people who are housebound and it’s pure chaos. Some areas have community services doing the housebound patients as well as GPs, some don’t, people call in sick on day all the time, they go to the wrong house and realise when they get there so do their jab instead, etc.

Whether it’s a scam or an NHS cock up your partner’s mum sounds really vulnerable. Have you spoken to your local neighbourhood officer? Ours is really proactive about safety for the vulnerable and gave us various gadgets (window alarms, etc) and lots of recommendations for my partner’s grandparents.

Register with the Telephone Preference Service.

Enter as many landlines/mobiles as you want too. They don’t have to be linked to the same address.

Your numbers won’t be included in cold callers/scammers lists etc.

www.tpsonline.org.uk/

If she has a limited circle of people who call her, i think you can set her phone to only allow calls from contacts. This will cut out any scam calls.

These people prey on the vulnerable. My grandad has been victim to a number of scams. People ring up to do “surveys” to find out information about people so when they call for the scam they seem legit. Old people are very trusting unfortunately - my mum has had to intercept my grandad telling someone his internet banking passwords over the phone 🙄🙄

Hi, I’m not sure if this is a scam but I work behind the scenes in a GP Practice and one of my jobs is to arrange housebound vaccines etc.
The Covid vacs are being done slightly differently to the normal seasonal flu, pneumonia vaccinations as they are drawn from a vial and are not single pre-drawn syringes.
this means a dedicated nursing team do the vaccines in batches of ten or twenty and do not come from the surgery. All we do at our end is send a list of housebound patients with their health and care number and if they are able to consent, so wouldn’t know wether a call had been made arranging the vaccination or not.
that being said, it’s bad form if the nurse/practitioner did not show up and normally they would not give a time as housebound patients are assumed to be home at all times.
I really hope it was not a scam.

The phone call, not turning up and the gp surgery not knowing anything g sounds normal. My mum is housebound, the community nurses administer the jabs, the Dr knows nothing about the date they actually do it, in our county anyway.

My mum does the same as yours too, she either locks the door and keeps the key in the lock, or doesn't lock it all. She too has a panic button and a key box.

However, it's the rifling through her things that concerns me, and I wonder if the 2 were just very fluky timing. I would certainly contact the police, change the keypad code and only give it to the registered contacts

Have you got a visitors book? We had to us for my elderly housebound grandma and any care staff/ medical staff / cleaner / had to write in to say they'd been in the house. It helps keep track of who has been and why. Failing that get cctv or a ring doorbell

Please please report to police urgently. This is a scam and she is at risk. Yes they saw your partners car no doubt, and decided not to come in. Very scary.

Thank you for all your responses - have read them all and there are some really good suggestions for us to look into. She has other family there today but I will go tomorrow and look at doing something about the phone calls there and then. It is something that I have been trying to find a solution to for sometime, but it is not as easy as it sounds. We have considered caller display but don’t think, because of her eyesight and the phones are too fiddly, that this would work well. We need her to make outbound calls but not receive any. It is a massive effort for her to get to the phone, so any type of call is really a nuisance.

With regard to it being a scam or burglary attempt… I was prepared to go along with it being the NHS and genuine, (though it still niggled…). It was when she told me yesterday that they were very insistent on her being in and not going out anywhere. MIL said they repeated this -“ be in at 10am onwards and we could arrive at any time. “ Being on the housebound list means you cannot get out, even with assistance, and we had a hard time getting her accepted on this list despite her mobility issues and pain when travelling by car. Of course, a scammer wouldn’t know that the idea she might pop at during the day would be ridiculous! Also, that the nurse wouldn’t be the usual nurse but a stranger is a little odd.

We are doing all we can to protect her but it is a very fine line between caring, allowing her independence and control over her own life, and not alarming her or causing stress. I am pretty certain she wouldn’t accept cctv and hasn’t any internet (that would also stress her out. She is terrified of technology). She is very independent minded and knows what she wants or doesn’t want, and it can be a long time persuading her to accept any changes.

We will talk to her some more tomorrow.

She might accept a ring type doorbell which you could monitor who arrives at her door.

Just say it connects to your phone and she does not have to do anything herself. But it would also mean you could speak to the person ringing, I think, if I recall which might be better all round. Especially if she falls or something.

A call blocker might be useful. I have one of these www.truecall.co.uk/shop/truecall-call-blocker
You can program it to let specific numbers through; anyone else either gets blocked, or if they get through you can choose whether to pick the call up. We tried TPS, but it wasn't very successful.

Does look like a ring type doorbell might help, seeing what they can do, op - if she would accept that.

https://en-uk.ring.com/pages/doorbells?utmsource=google&utmmmedium=cpc&utmcampaign=UKKEnglishSearchhBrandDoorbelllExactGoogleeCPC&utmcontent=DoorbelllExact+%2F+ring+doorbell&utmterm=ring%20doorbell&utmmsource=google&utmmedium=cpc&utmmcampaign=UKEnglishhSearchBranddDoorbellExacttGoogleCPC&utmmcontent=DoorbellExact+%2F+ring+doorbell&utmmterm=ring%20doorbell&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw4jq8a29wIVye3tCh0UAQOEEAAYASABEgL4YPDDBwE

So I would change the key safe code.

Get a recording of everyone who comes to the door.

Speak to any unknown people over the phone who ring her doorbell.

She is already TPS registered. The true call blocker looks great but she already has a personal alarm box plugged into the wall socket so I doubt we could add another box but I cannot be sure. Thank you for the suggestion though.

Not read all so probably been suggested but I would get a ring door bell installed or something similar immediately. It will put your mind at ease and be a good deterrent

TPS is a waste of time for scam calls. They're not nice and polite and law abiding, you know 😅

All sounds quite worrying, seems like your mum has got on to scammers lists for the phone and maybe her address as well.

She is already TPS registered. The true call blocker looks great but she already has a personal alarm box plugged into the wall socket so I doubt we could add another box but I cannot be sure. Thank you for the suggestion though.
Is the personal alarm plugged into the phone socket though? We had a CareLinkPlus box for my husband, but could still use the TrueCall. You plug it in between the phone and the socket.

Yes, the alarm box is plugged into the phone socket and the phone is plugged into the box.

Police for sure - this is definitely dodgy. Will these people stop at nothing?