The cynical world of dementia marketing

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Earlier I was talking about dementia and my old dad. Well because 1 in 4 of us over 80 will get probably dementia and often widowed by the time you hit that mark it makes our parents extremely vulnerable to marketing and con men. Irish traveler folk are known for targeting old people with scams like overcharging for unneeded building work and distraction robbery although not a huge problem in general. No, where I get really annoyed is marketing people who cynically target older people with early onset dementia with those memorabilia mail-order adverts in the national newspapers. When I first saw the adverts for those commemorative plates for the Royal Family and World War Two and stuff I thought nothing of it. People collect stuff so why not a Spitfire and Lancaster bomber prints on a plate? But that stuff isn’t old and not made from quality materials and so not worth the quoted price. The commemorative medals of various historical events are gold looking and nice and shiny and aimed at people who are around 80 years old. The decorated china cups of the queen and the royals the same. A trading standards officer told me these things are deliberately aimed at the elderly and infirm, the idea being dementia sufferers remember their youth more than the present and so want to buy it. Once they order some of this stuff mail order the company has their credit/debit card details and so these poor old sods just keep buying it and easy targets. My dad got caught out with his early onset dementia and had room full of it before we found out. Another 84-year-old guy just kept buying wine online because the lady on the phone was so nice to him as they chatted about the 1940s. Its hardcore cynical marketing to people who are ill. But it gets worse. These companies buy mailing lists of older people in nice areas who may have already started buying similar stuff and blitz them with catalogs and once they purchase online that name goes on another list and that can end up with criminals. It’s a seedy business. You see it with dating sites where workers in Latvia and Russia pretend to be young women and men to fleece older lonely hearts into thinking they are talking to the person in the photograph so they pay for month after month on the site chatting to them. I think it’s time that a law was introduced to stop companies targeting ill people.