Police Warn That Elderly People Are Getting Scammed On Dating Sites – 2023 – Perennial Problem Gets Reported Like It’s New Every Other Year, Weird!

Police Warn That Elderly People Are Getting Scammed On Dating Sites – 2023 – Perennial Problem Gets Reported Like It’s New Every Other Year, Weird!

I’ve been running this blog for 13 years now. And I can say that this is a thing and has been a thing for a long time – that is to say, at least once a year, or every other year, I see headlines in the news heralding that senior citizens are being scammed on dating sites, and they’re being scammed more than ever.

This is not new information.

I don’t know why almost every year (to two years) police start announcing to the world that elderly people are getting ripped off on dating apps and sites. This is like telling the public every year that water is wet or the sky is blue.

Elderly people getting scammed on dating sites and apps goes together like peanut butter and jelly or salt and pepper.

We’re now in 2023. Who are these elderly people being scammed these days, older Baby Boomers – I doubt it’s Silent Gen? At this time of writing, most of Gen X is not old enough to have dementia yet, so it’s definitely not Gen X, and most of Gen X is still considered middle-aged, not “elderly.”

I’m sorry if I sound victim blame-y here, but I don’t understand how in this day and age there are still some people who do not understand that you never, ever give or send money to anyone you meet online, especially not via a dating site.

I would maybe understand Silent Gen doing this, but most of them are octogenarians and are probably not dating, or even know what a dating app is.

I would assume that Baby Boomers would not be naive or foolish enough to fall for dating scams, so who are these elderly people these days being duped?

Public Service Announcement to anyone currently over age of 64:
You should already know this: if anyone asks you for money on any site, especially a dating site, even if they claim to be a Prince from Nigeria or a famous movie actor, do NOT send them any money! It’s a SCAM!

This type of news story is so common any more, that for however long I continue to run this blog, if I see any more of these “Elderly Folks Getting Scammed on Dating Sites” news headlines, I may not blog on them further.

Yes, elderly people get scammed on dating sites and apps, see also: the sun rises in the east, grass is green, and cats cough up fur balls. We know.

(Link): Police Warn That Elderly People Are Getting Scammed On Dating Sites

by J. Clinton
Feb 2, 2023

Oklahoma City Police reported that elderly people are more likely to be scammed than ever before.

Scams always start out with the scammer asking for money, (Link): Oklahoma News 4 reported.

“There’s so many scammers out there that will get online and many of them tell very believable stories and they will meet people on these dating sites in hopes that they’re lonely and they will do just about anything to keep a connection with someone, including send them cash and you really fall right into their hands,” Gary Knight, an employee of the Oklahoma City Police Department, explained.

One victim in particular, an elderly woman, reportedly paid $56,000 through cashier checks, cash, and gift cards to an anonymous scammer she never met, the outlet noted.

Many are reportedly approached by scammers on online services like Facebook Dating.

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or Happiness, Meaning, Purpose

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness, Meaning, or Purpose

After entertainer Chelsea Handler uploaded (Link): a Tweet with a video of herself listing the numerous ways she enjoys life due to being childless – I didn’t see anything in the video mentioning abortion – a lot of other conservatives jumped to shame and scold Handler for being happy about being childless and publicly expressing that happiness.

Others have said that Handler had two or three abortions in the past. The fact that Handler previously had abortions does not change the substance of my problems with conservative reaction to Handler’s video.

I am pro-life, not pro-choice, so I don’t agree with Handler’s actions to terminate her pregnancies.

However, again, I don’t recall Handler’s “happy to be childless” video advocating abortion or mentioning anything about abortion.

I don’t think her video criticized or shamed women for being mothers or for wanting to be mothers.

The only possible, even remotely “anti motherhood” take away one can get from her video is that mothers – assuming they are good, non-abusive mothers – invest a lot of time in child-rearing, but Handler doesn’t frame it in an anti-motherhood way.

It’s Okay For Women to Be Childless at Any Age and to be Happy About Being Childless, Just Like It’s Okay For Mothers to Be Happy About Being Mothers

Handler was just showing ways she has more free time because she doesn’t have to participate in childcare – which is not the same thing as being “anti-motherhood,” or telling other women they are wrong to be mothers.

It’s perfectly fine for a woman to be single and childless and to be happy about it.

Women can and should find meaning and purpose apart from marriage and motherhood. It’s unhealthy for any person to wrap up all their happiness, meaning, or purpose into one identity, station of life, or role.

If you are a married mother, your children will grow up, move out, and seldom visit you once they’re gone. Your husband may develop dementia, abuse you, or cheat on you, so that you will be without emotional support or you will have to divorce him.
In all these situations, you will be left with yourself, by yourself, and god help you if you never forged purpose, identity, happiness, or meaning apart from a spouse and children.

There’s no reason to criticize or shame an adult, man or woman, for being single and childless and for being happy about it and posting about it.

My fellow conservatives often push motherhood (via podcasts, tweets, magazine articles, church sermons, blog posts, etc) to a loopy, creepy, fevered pitch, about how super awesome, fulfilling, and wonderful motherhood supposedly is – but goodness forbid a childless woman lists or publicizes the ways she’s happy with being childless – and do so without criticizing motherhood or mothers. That’s a huge double standard.

I also didn’t agree with Handler’s mockery of single women who choose to remain virgins until marriage or to remain chaste (I blogged about that (Link): here a few years ago).

Unfortunately, in the midst of criticizing Handler, a lot of conservatives today were conflating “womanhood” to married motherhood. 

However, a woman remains a woman regardless if she has a child or is infertile, childless, or childfree, or whether she wants to have children or not.

(BARF): I’m 24 and my 85-year-old husband is older than my GRANDFATHER – but we’re looking into IVF so that he can be a dad for the first time – reporting by Ellen Coughlan

(BARF): I’m 24 and my 85-year-old husband is older than my GRANDFATHER – but we’re looking into IVF so that he can be a dad for the first time – reporting by Ellen Coughlan

🤮🤮🤮

(Link): I’m 24 and my husband is 85 — we want to start a family

by Andrew Court
Feb 2, 2023

A Mississippi woman who married a man 61 years her senior says she’s ready to start a family with her new husband — despite the fact he’s a decade older than her own grandpa.

Miracle Pogue, 24, met hubby Charles, 85, while working at a laundromat in Starkville in 2019, with the pair forming a friendship that turned romantic a year later.

Charles proposed in February 2020, and the couple went on to wed last summer.

Dear Abby: “My Kids Never Call or Visit Me” – Your Adult Children Do Not Owe You Friendship and Won’t Visit You When You Are Elderly: Readjust Your Expectations, Parents

Dear Abby: “My Kids Never Call or Visit Me” – Your Adult Children Do Not Owe You Friendship and Won’t Visit You When You Are Elderly: Readjust Your Expectations, Parents

If you’re a childfree person, you know you’ve heard pro-parenthood people, usually parents themselves, ask a million times, “But who is going to take care of you when you get older?”

From what I’ve heard of people who work in nursing homes, the adult children of elderly people in nursing homes seldom to never go to visit them.

When I used to periodically visit my grandmother in a nursing home, as myself and other family would be sitting in the lobby waiting for a nurse to wheel my grandmother out to visit, other seniors would wheel up to myself or one of my aunts and start to cry.

These seniors would cry (I mean literally cry, with tears running down their faces), and they’d say, “I don’t like it here, I want to go home.”

The vibe is that these elderly people hated being in the nursing home (which is understandable; I felt so bad for these people), but they were apparently not getting many visits (if any at all) from their family members.

When one of my Aunts got into her 80s (by that time, her spouse had been dead for around ten or more years), she was living alone, her memory was going – she eventually had to move in with one of her adult sons.

But prior to that, for years and years, that Aunt was on her own. She’d phone my Dad (her brother in law) any time she needed help.

My Dad ended up doing things like driving that particular Aunt of mine to the hospital at 2:00 in the morning when she fell and broke a rib. She called him and asked him for help with that.

My Dad went to her home on another occasion to fix a leaking toilet. My Dad also mowed her lawn for her a few times.

My Aunt’s own own adult son, who lived much closer to her than my father did, was not stepping up to the plate. He only came into the picture when there was no other choice.

His Mom (my Aunt) eventually got fairly bad dementia, or whatever problem (her recall became terrible) – she also became more and more physically frail, and it became glaringly obvious she could no longer live alone.

Only then did the adult son step up and let her live in his house, something he should’ve done years prior.

Before that, my Dad, who was up there in age himself, was driving to her house, which was like a 40 minute commute each way, to run errands for her, drive her to doctor’s appointments, etc, whenever she’d phone for help.

In reading up on books and web pages on abuse and codependency, I kept seeing one boundary violation by parents who have this bogus expectation that their adult children owe them friendship – to keep them occupied when they’re lonely.

This is doubly true if the parent in question is widowed (the other spouse died), or if they’re in a lonely, loveless marriage.

These types of parents (usually the mother) actually expects that their adult children (usually a daughter) to wait on them hand and foot, eat lunch with them daily, to phone them daily to chit chat – to be their buddy, their confidant and their pal to keep loneliness at bay.

And that is not a fair or reasonable expectation for a parent to have. Psychologists write about this in their books, it’s not merely me informing you of this.

I also read an entire book about emotional incest by a psychologist, and, according to this book, a lot of parents actually begin looking to a young child of theirs to meet their emotional needs and their need for companionship and/or identity or purpose when their kid is a baby, toddler, pre-teen, or teen!

This sort of thing does not always start in the kid’s adulthood, in other words. For some kids, it begins when they’re a baby or small child.

If the parent leans on the child in that manner, according to the psychologist who treats the now-adult patients who were leaned on by a parent when they were a kid, it will create all sorts of problems for the child when he or she grows up.

If you’re a parent, you need to realize that it’s not your child’s responsibility or duty to provide you with companionship, regardless of your child’s age.

If you are lonely or bored, you need to get out of the house and make friends with people YOUR OWN AGE.

You should never, ever rely on a child of yours (whatever their age) to meet your need for friendship, nor should you share personal details with them, like divorce stress, or whatever.

Your child is not your mini-therapist at any age. Talk to an adult friend about your adult problems. Making friends as an adult is not easy, but you will be messing up your kid if you start sharing “adult” details and problems with them, especially if they are young.

Anyway, having children is NOT a guarantee that the children will regularly stay in touch with you as you age.

(Link): Dear Abby: My Kids Never Call or Visit Me

by Dear Abby
January 29, 2023

DEAR ABBY:
I am an active widower with five grown children. Although three of them live in the same city and two live in a city nearby, I haven’t heard from or seen them as often over the past few years as I would like.

I realized recently that I miss their company and I’d like them to call or see me more often.

Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Murdering Her Elderly Parents and Dismembering Them with an Electric Chainsaw – The Nuclear Family Doesn’t Fix Society or Make People More Ethical

Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Murdering Her Elderly Parents and Dismembering Them with an Electric Chainsaw – The Nuclear Family Doesn’t Fix Society or Make People More Ethical

For the record, I am a conservative who is not anti-Nuclear-Family, but I reject the usual conservative obsession with promoting the Nuclear Family constantly.

Just because Democrats are anti-Nuclear Family Marxists does not make it acceptable for conservatives to turn the Nuclear Family into an idol.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Being in a Nuclear Family did not make this woman more godly, responsible or loving. Being married with children did not keep this elderly couple safe.

(Link): Daughter allegedly shoots parents, dismembers bodies with CHAINSAW in Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania woman has been taken into custody after allegedly shooting her elderly parents in the head and dismembering their bodies with a chainsaw.

Verity Beck, 43, faces charges of first and third-degree murder for the killing of 73-year-old Reid Beck and 72-year-old Miriam Beck, and is currently being held without bail.

Man Attacks His 70 Year Old Father While Visiting to “Reconnect,” Breaks the Dad’s Ribs and Some Teeth

Man Attacks His 70 Year Old Father While Visiting to “Reconnect,” Breaks the Dad’s Ribs and Some Teeth

I believe this took place in the UK (it’s from a British paper).

Does the Nuclear Family, or being in one, make a person more godly, ethical, mature, or responsible? Nope.

Does being a Father protect this man from getting his ribs broken – nope, they were broken by his own son.

I am fine with parenthood and the Nuclear Family, but not with the nauseating non-stop push by other conservatives to keep making more out of it than warranted. The Nuclear Family, marriage, parenthood will not “save” a nation, nor does the Bible teach that they will, any verses about children being a blessing included.

Children being a blessing doesn’t convey that natalism will “fix” immorality in a rotting culture, or that every single child will turn out to be a loving, responsible citizen.

The Bible makes no such promises.

Not all children ‘trained up’ (Proverbs 22:6) will turn out okay, as that one Bible verse states. Such bits of wisdom in the Old Testament are not meant to be applicable to each and every person and situation; we’ve all seen exceptions.

A lot of parents “train up” their children in the wrong way, by abusing or neglecting them, and in some such cases, those children, due to the mistreatment, later develop abusive natures or personality disorders or styles (such as BPD or pathological narcissism) that results in them abusing other adults in their lives.

(Link):  Son attacked elderly dad with casserole dish breaking his ribs and knocking out teeth

Dec 27, 2022
by Brooke Davies

A man attacked his dad, 70, with a casserole dish whilst visiting him to ‘reconnect’.

Peter Taylor, 43, from Leicester, was drunk on whisky as the two men had discussed money.

His father had previously lent him £100 and, after discussing the cash, then asked his son to leave.

But Taylor, a playground supervisor, then flung a small dining table across the flat and launched an attack on the pensioner sat in his chair.

Leicester Crown Court heard how his dad was knocked to the floor.

Taylor then continued to punch the older man and picked up a casserole dish to use as a weapon.

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

I could not find a copy of this online, so I cannot link to it. I have a print copy.

Someone did upload a copy to Scribd, but you have to have a subscription or whatever to read past the first few paragraphs

Girlfriend Power

Excerpts:

February / March 2022

It was the first Valentine’s Day after my marriage ended. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party with a bunch of single ladies

Girlfriend Power by Jennie Ivey

[The author opens the piece by explaining that she and her husband George were divorcing after 35 years of marriage.]

… For the first time in decades, I wasn’t part of a couple. For the first time in my life, I was living alone.

… Why oh why had I said I’d go to my friend Pat’s Valentine’s party? “Celebrate with other singles at a girls’ night in,” the invitation read. “Food! Music! Games! Fun!”

[Initially, she called her friend who was throwing the party to decline. The friend told her the reason for the party started years before, when her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, and her father died on Valentine’s Day a few years prior. The friend replied,]

… “instead of moping around because we’re not coupled up, we get together to have a good time.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“And one more thing, Jennie – you have to wear pink or red. It’s a Valentine’s party rule!”

[She mentions that her ex husband George was a surgeon, and while he wasn’t the greatest husband, he did okay on Valentine’s – he’d bring her flowers or candy in heart shaped boxes and so on]

Before I left for Pat’s I said a quick prayer. I hadn’t done a whole lot of praying since the breakup of my marriage. Sometimes I felt mad at God. Furious even.

Did he care that I was suddenly single at 60, an age when most couples were looking forward to retirement and spending time with their kids and grandkids together?

My prayer that evening was short and to the point: God, please show me how to be single.

Thanksgiving Horror: Family Members Arrive at Relatives’ Home for Holiday Gathering, Discover Husband Had Dismembered and Disemboweled His Wife, Police Say

Thanksgiving Horror: Family Members Arrive at Relatives’ Home for Holiday Gathering, Discover Husband Had Dismembered and Disemboweled His Wife, Police Say

My, my, my. If nothing else undercuts the hyper- marriage- and nuclear family propaganda spewed by my fellow conservatives, this sure does.

This woman was married – did being married bring her happiness, joy, or peace? Nope. She is very dead – killed by her looney husband.

Did being married make this husband more ethical, sane, godly, mentally healthy, or responsible? Nope, it sure did not.

If you’re a single adult disappointed to be age 35 or older and still single (when you had expected marriage), just remember, there ARE worse things than being  single – like being married to a dementia-addled dirtbag who literally cuts you apart dead, for your relatives to discover.

(Link): New Mexico man arrested after allegedly dismembering and disemboweling wife ahead of Thanksgiving dinner

A family’s Thanksgiving festivities took a turn after a New Mexico man was arrested Thursday after allegedly stabbing his wife to death and dismembering her body.

Relatives had found Karlan Denio, 62, lying in bed with his wife Connie’s body on the floor ahead of the family’s Thanksgiving meal. They then called police and Denio was taken into custody Thursday afternoon and charged with first-degree murder, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Albuquerque Journal.

(Link): Man with dementia accused of murdering, dismembering wife on Thanksgiving 

By Isabel Keane
Nov 27, 2022

A New Mexico man with dementia allegedly killed, dismembered and disemboweled his wife hours before out-of-town family arrived at their home to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Relatives of Karlan and Connie Denio had to take the hinges off a door to enter the couple’s Albuquerque home Thursday afternoon when no one answered, and then made the horrifying discovery.

Karlan Denio, 62, was found lying in bed, while cops said his wife, Connie, was discovered “dismembered and disemboweled” on the bedroom floor, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

…Police who arrived at the grisly scene found Connie “dismembered and disemboweled,” authorities said. They detained Karlan and found he had cuts on his leg and neck, officials said.

Woman Allegedly Drowns 93-Year-Old Grandmother in Kitchen Sink, Bathtub to Dodge Nursing Home Bills

Woman Allegedly Drowns 93-Year-Old Grandmother in Kitchen Sink, Bathtub to Dodge Nursing Home Bills

Who will take care of you when you get old? Your children? Your grandchildren? Don’t be ridiculous, they won’t visit you in the nursing home, let alone take care of you, and some of them, like the granddaughter below, may drown you.

How about those Family Values, huh?

I can imagine if you’re a conservative who is new to my blog here, you may at first glance assume I’m a nuclear family hating liberal, when in reality, I am not opposed to the nuclear family, I’m a conservative,
but boy, do I ever see a lot of news headlines over the years that blows a hole in the conservative propaganda that marriage, parenthood, and the nuclear family will repair a sick culture, or that marriage and parenthood can make a person more godly, mature, loving, or ethical.

Being a part of a nuclear family sure as heck didn’t make this woman more loving or godly.
She killed her own grandmother – who was a great person by her own admission – because she didn’t want to raise the funds to put grandma in a nursing home at doctor’s advisement.

Killing grandma to save a buck. Lord Jesus. RIP to the grandmother.

(Link): Ohio woman confesses to drowning grandmother who needed nursing home: reports 

by David Propper
Nov 17, 2022

An Ohio woman allegedly drowned her grandmother the day after the 93-year-old was told she needed to be placed in a nursing home, according to reports.

Granddaughter Heidi Matheny, of Eaton, is reportedly facing a murder charge after she confessed to the twisted crime that ended Alice Matheny’s life Tuesday.

“According to the confession, she was just tired of taking care of a grandmother,” Eaton Police Division Chief Steven Hurd said, according to WDTN.

The granddaughter was worried that she could not afford the cost of the nursing home and insurance would not pick up the tab, according to a police report obtained by the television station.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin 

I think this is from Bella DePaulo’s Medium account.

By the way, the anecdote about all the married couples immediately departing from welcoming the new woman neighbor once they found out she had no husband?
Read the book “Singled Out” by Field and Colon to see example after example of Christians doing the SAME THING to new single adults who show up in their lives, even to church services or church events (such as luncheons) –
– the minute the married Christian women find out you are single and/or childless, they immediately act freaked out, or weirded out, and will turn their back on you to run across the room to greet a woman who they know is married and/or a mother.

Treating adult singles as though they are dangerous, weird, or flawed, and then immediately avoiding them to run off in search of another married mother to chat with, is very hurtful behavior to the adult singles in question, but it seems to be common behavior by married Christians in many churches and Christian culture.

Married Christian men treat single women as though they are all harlots, so they avoid single women, which is also insulting, demeaning, and hurtful behavior. (At least this is true of the Christian married men who aren’t looking to commit adultery.)

God says in the Bible he does not play favorites, and I believe God instructs Christians to avoid playing favorites
– which would mean, (and since so many Christians have turned The Nuclear Family into idols they worship), Christians do play favorites, they almost always prioritize married parents above single, childless adults, and so,
they will instantly ignore or otherwise marginalize any adult who crosses their path (even at church) if that adult is single and childless (ie, these adults don’t have a Nuclear Family of their own, they’re not married parents).

The church should not be doing this; the church is supposed to be above this behavior – but it’s not.

(Link): The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

Excerpts:

Aging happily while single isn’t about doctors, diets or relationships. It’s about choosing the best place to live.

Nov 11, 2022

From Bella: Guest blogger Cathy Goodwin really knows how to get to the heart of things that matter to single people.

A guest post she wrote for my Living Single blog on (Link): how the medical establishment makes it hard for single people to get the care they need, is one that readers go back to again and again. Now she is out with a new, provocative book on aging, (Link): When I Grow Old I Plan to be a Bitch.

Prepare to hear some ideas you’ve never encountered before, and to laugh out loud along the way. I invited Cathy Goodwin to write a guest post about aging when single and I am delighted that she agreed.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person

By Cathy Goodwin

Go to any online forum about being single, growing older, or even “being single while growing older.” You’ll find dozens of posts like this:

“I can’t seem to find anything meaningful to occupy my time.”
“I’m having trouble making new friends.”
“I couldn’t get help when I was sick.”
“I feel like an outsider in my community.”
“I’m just not enjoying life the way I’d hoped.”
What happened to most of these folks?

They’d say they’re lonely. They might say, “It’s part of growing old.” They’d be wrong.

The truth is, they moved to a place that’s all wrong for them.

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

(Link): Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One

Excerpts:

And, no, I don’t have an affliction in need of a cure.

By Michele Weldon
October 17, 2022

…Married for nine years (we were together for 12) from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s and divorced for the past 26 years, I have been in one serious, nearly seven-year relationship since my divorce. It was a mostly calm alliance that he ended with his declaration that he never was number one in my life, and needed to be.

…Proposing a rebuttal to Three Dog Night’s 1969 cover of “One Is the Loneliest Number,” I suggest that for many women 50 and older, being single is not just a holding pattern until the next best person comes along.

In her latest book, Not Too Old for That: How Women Are Changing the Story of Aging (2022), award-winning journalist and author Vicki Larson writes, “What if being self-partnered is nothing to fear, but something actually to celebrate?”

Woman Celebrates 106th Birthday With Naked Waiter: ‘He Had No Underwear On’

Woman Celebrates 106th Birthday With Naked Waiter: ‘He Had No Underwear On’

(Link): Great-grandma asks for ‘hunky man’ for 106th birthday and gets naked butler

August 10, 2022

A cheeky great-gran was thrilled when a butler in the buff arrived to pour her a glass of bubbly to mark her 106th birthday.

Norah Shaw, who has three children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, had joked about wanting a ‘hunky man’ for her big day.

So her daughter decided to make her dreams come true, and got Eddy Betteridge, 32, from the Butlers in the Buff agency to serve her afternoon tea and drinks.