Seniors: Protect Yourself As a senior, I am likely to be vulnerable to senior abuse. Senior abuse is a term given to the act of committing harm or distress towards seniors. An abuser can be a spouse, partner, relative, friend, neighbor, or any other individual. Investigations on the preying on seniors has nearly doubled in the past five years—jumping from about 5,200 in 2005 to nearly 10,000 in 2010. I remember a time that my mother, who was a senior, talking to someone on her phone. Abruptly, she hung up it up. I asked her what happened and she said that the person on the other line wanted her social security number. She felt that she was being scammed. This was not the first time I had seen her experience such an incident. Seniors need to be cautious and protect themselves from predators. If …show more content…
When I needed to have my house painted, I asked a friend for a recommendation. I asked the handyman, that she suggested, to write me out a contract for the work. He performed the job satisfactorily. Next, he shoveled some snow off my walkway and driveway, but I did not ask for a written contract because it was a small job and he did it fine. Then, I asked him to install a handrail. We talked about his service and the cost for supplies, but I did not ask for a written contract because he had done work for me before and the job was a small one. However when he performed the work, the rail was not steady. I repeatedly asked him to correct the problem. Finally he fixed it and he asked me for more money because he said that he lost money in the deal, but I refused to pay him anything else. He kept trying to get more money out of me and I told him that he was trying to take advantage of me. I had to abruptly end the conversation and move on. Now I cannot use him for future work. Perhaps, if I had asked him to write out a contract for the handrail, the outcome would have been