My Dad's story is pretty much the same as everybody else! My brother entered my 92 y.O. Father's assisted living apt as he was giving his checking acct number to someone over the phone. Dad said he thought he was talking to a local health care equipment provider about a particular walker. My brother called me and I called his bank as I am POA for him. We were unable to tell them who the company was and Dad wasn't even sure what the amount was - about $400 he said. Since I was out-of-town that day we went to the bank the next day and transferred the majority of the money from that acct into a new one. We had to leave it open as he had several direct pay billings due at any time as well as his social security to be deposited. The bank said they would watch for this particular automatic payment for about $400.00 I have been making the weekly phone calls just like everyone else to a "Third Party Customer Service" company who say the refund has been authorized but has been delayed. Yesterday the gentleman said the company was "I BenMed" but the check was payable to YR Benefits. Previously a young lady said they were in New York State. According to the internet, BenMed is in Ohio. Anyway, the check did come through Dad's bank dated May 25th and the main office of his bank PAID it! When we asked why, they said they knew Dad had money in the other account so thought he'd just forgotten to transfer money to the old account in order to cover this check. This is service they provide their customers! They did not confirm this with his local office nor with my Dad. So we did everything we could think of to stop the scam but due to what I would call some faulty practices of Dad's bank, we lost the money anyway. I will be filing a report with the Iowa State Attorney General's office. Dad's pretty upset about it because we did all we could and then his bank let him down. He's talking about going after the bank to get his money back in this case.
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