Stranger Danger Applies to All
A housebound old lady with Huntington's disease and has trouble walking was in her kitchen when she saw a friendly looking man waving to her from outside. He pointed to the door, rang her bell on the intercom and she let him into the building.
The man told her that he'd been gardening during the morning and it was time for him to go home. He was waiting for an Avon to be delivered from a friend and he'd leave her with £50 to pay for it until he got back. After saying that he trusted her, she took his word for it and went to get him a drink.
While she was getting him a drink he said that he had seen the person that he was waiting for and he didn't need to pay her the £50.
Later on that day she was looking for her handbag which had gone missing. She had three relatives looking all through her house.
Convinced it was the carers that were contracted to visit her daily she'd dismissed this strange event that had happened before.
It was only while her three family members were eating after reporting the theft to the Police and to the Home Care Agency that the old lady thought to tell us the story of this event.
Crimes against the vulnerable are taken more seriously than any other by the Police and they spend more time investigating them than any other. However prevention is far better than the cure.
The Old Lady is my Step-Father's mother and along with my Step-Father and Mother, I helped to search her house for the handbag and had to demonstrate how the thief had the time to take the handbag from her living room while using the water as a distraction tactic.
Prevention is better than the cure. Please display the notice and pass it on to others encouraging them to read the notecard included.
We can't turn back the clock, but we can teach the Elderly about other people's mistakes and encourage them to make the appropriate safeguards to prevent them making those same mistakes.
Housebound people do have to trust people however if they don't have proper identification or they don't know them. They should keep them out.
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Elderly people aren't the only vulnerable people.
Below is a true story which has come from Second Life and caused a real person in this story named (A) to take her own life after trusting someone in SL with too much information.
(A) had befriended a seemingly nice guy, who'd “escaped” from a hard relationship and made friends with (A). They talked a lot as good friends do, both Second Life and Real Life and trusted each other with information about their lives. Over time the guy's heart mended and started to make up with the girl that he'd escaped from.
It was when he went back to the girl that he was supposedly escaping from in the first place that he told her what (A) had told him in confidence. This crazy woman went after (A) with a vengeance, getting her minions (geek boys that like to be destructive) and female friends to follow (A) around and hound her.
Her real life name, which is very unique [witheld] was said in open chat in night clubs, concerts, where ever (A) was...and other private things about her, being openly discussed.
When (A) tried to talk to him about it he muted her and banned her. Then her face book account was hacked and they got her husbands name...and then the phone number and the phone calls began at her home. Finally a night post on his face book about something (A) had done ... an indiscretion and her rl husband had had enough, he walked out.
It was the deliberate destruction and dismantling of a woman's life, she had been hounded everywhere that she went in Real Life. In Second Life she was hounded, which is where most people go to escape Real Life. Her husband had left her. With seemingly no one to turn to for support, she felt that her only option was to take her own life.
The events of this story don't mean that you can't share some of the things that happen in Second Life in Real Life. However you do need to be careful and keep your key personal details to yourself until you know and you are 100% certain that it is safe to trust them.
