Anyone can become a victim of fraud, but sadly, older and vulnerable people are seen as easy targets by scammers.
Our customer *Jacob, narrowly escaped being scammed out of a large sum of money and wanted to share his story to raise awareness and stop the same thing from happening to other people.
Jacob is elderly, lives alone and has mild learning disabilities and autism. A group of men came to his house offering to do some work on his garden, and asked for £500 in cash as advance payment. Thinking they were the real deal, Jacob agreed but as he had no cash in the house they offered to take him to the cash machine at the local shops, where they stood over him while he tried to withdraw the money. He couldn’t remember his PIN number and after three attempts the men took his card from him and told him they’d be back the next day and he could try again then.
Jacob gets regular support from our Help at Hand team and when one of our independent living officers visited him the following morning, he was really upset about losing his bank card and told her what had happened. Having been trained in safeguarding, she knew exactly what to do. She immediately reported it to our safeguarding team, the police and the bank, who confirmed there had been several failed attempts to withdraw large amounts of money, and blocked the card.
We’re continuing to work closely with the local authority to rebuild Jacob’s confidence and make sure he gets the support he needs to carry on living safely and independently in his own home.
Julie Lawton, who leads Yorkshire Housing’s safeguarding team said: “Thanks to our colleague’s quick intervention we were able to stop these criminals in their tracks and prevent Jacob from coming to any further harm. The impact of being taken in by scammers can be really damaging to the elderly and vulnerable. They often feel too embarrassed or ashamed to tell anyone about what’s happened, so we’re really grateful to Jacob for allowing us to share his story.”
All colleagues at Yorkshire Housing who have regular contact with customers complete specialist safeguarding training, and we also have a network of qualified Designated Safeguarding Persons across the organisation who act as focal points for safeguarding concerns.
Safeguarding simply means keeping people safe from harm, neglect or abuse, but it can sometimes be difficult to spot. Find out more about safeguarding and how we can help. And if you’re worried about someone, please get in touch with our safeguarding team. You might not be 100% sure something’s wrong but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
*we’ve changed our customer’s name to keep him safe