My mom has been writing checks to various charities and organizations that are mostly scammers.
In one instance my sister took a check away that was in an envelope to a scam pharmacy who is selling memory cure pills. She wont take the actual pills that the doctor prescribed for her so she’s trying what she sees on TV.
As soon as my sister left mom wrote out another check and sent it right out to the company.
Mom is constantly sending checks to various charities, small donations but nonetheless checks that add up.
She thinks it’s for the local police but it’s not and no matter how oftern we explain it she keeps doing it.
We have also tried to get her away from publishers clearing House and told her if we saw any more checks to them we would take the checkbook away.
To get around this she then processed monthly automatic withdrawals to publishers clearinghouse to get around the check issue.
The last time one of us tried to get her checking account away from her she became angry and violent.
Help!
To keep your Mom from writing large checks, the bank can set up the checks that anything over $100 or whatever would require two signatures. You can tell Mom that is to prevent fraud or in case her check is stolen.
It is very hard for anyone who is getting older to give up so much of their independence. And the checkbook might be her last bit of independence.
Depending on what cognitive state she is in, if you have a durable PoA you may not need to have her assessed for compentency. Here in MN you don't need to change anything as your LO slides from right mind to dementia if your powers are durable.
When we discovered that my MIL and StepFIL had over $935 in overdrafts and weren't recording the checks they wrote and had kept ordering boxes and boxes of checks because they couldn't remember where they put them, and they would write a check out of one book, lose that one and then write checks out of a variety of books, we had to take control whether they "liked" it or not. When they weren't looking we scoured their house and found every last checkbook. My husband had DPoA for his mom so he took her and his papers to the bank, had his name added jointly to her checking acct, renegotiated the overdraft fees and put all bill payments online. Without telling them we sent all their mail to a PO box to which they had no access and sorted their mail before they saw it, removing all the scams.
You don't have to tell your mom what you're doing. It will only upset her and cause her to dread your visits. Try to be creative about using strategies that don't upset her. It will help both of you.