Bigfork Community Center staff wants to warn seniors about Meals on Wheels imposters
Staff at the Bigfork Community Center want to warn seniors and others in the community about people potentially posing as Meals on Wheels drivers. Social Coordinator Tanya Dowling said one of their board members was approached by someone in the community who said she had an incident with two young men when they showed up at her house late in the evening claiming to be Meals on Wheels drivers.
The Bigfork Community Center also serves as the senior center and operates the Meals on Wheels program in and around Bigfork.
Dowling said the community member reported that two men in their twenties arrived at their house around 8 p.m., stating that they were from Meals on Wheels. The community member said the men told her they had cookies to deliver to her, which she denied and the men went away soon after. This community member is not enrolled in Meals on Wheels and reported the incident to Flathead County Sheriff’s Department.
Dowling also reported the incident to the Flathead Agency on Aging located in Kalispell. She said it was the first time they had heard of people posing as Meals on Wheels drivers.
“So, now we are going to make sure all of our current drivers have current identification when they do deliver. We do background checks on all of our drivers and all of our clients, so if they haven’t requested a Meals on Wheels, they don’t get one,” Dowling said.
She said their Meals on Wheels program also never delivers at night time and their vehicles are clearly marked. In fact, an important part of Meals on Wheels is the well-being check it provides clients. Dowling said their drivers cannot leave food until they have heard from the resident in some form.
“We can’t just leave it, we have to physically make contact with them, or at least hear them through the door saying ‘I’m okay, I’m in the bathroom,’ you know we have to physically hear them and even if we don’t see them, if we make contact with a caretaker or nurse…as long as we make contact and see that the seniors are okay, but we always prefer to see them,” she said.
Although it’s currently unclear whether or not this is a standalone incident, there are many different scams targeted at seniors everyday. Local city and county agencies warn community members when there is a scam targeting seniors in the Flathead. In November, the Kalispell Police Department put out a notice that there was a scam call claiming to be from their department and threatening the caller with loss of benefits. They said in a Facebook post that they do not use any automotive phone systems and do not have anything to do with any type of benefits.
To find out more about scams aimed at seniors, the AOA recommends checking the Senior Medicare Patrol website, which posts up-to-date information about scams and Medicare fraud attempts going around. The website also provides resources for seniors who have been victims of these scams.