All Care-Givers Aren’t Con Artists

As a Leisure World resident who has used care-givers on occasion over the past 11 years, I do not want to see all care-givers tarred with the same brush as the few unscrupulous ones.

True, there are those leeches who view the elderly as senile and therefore ripe pickings, as in the cases mentioned in your articles (“O.C. Retirement Centers are Swindlers’ Paradise,” Nov. 3, and “O.C. Sheriff Probing Bequest to Care-Givers,” Nov. 4). But what of the hundreds of other compassionate, giving individuals who truly care for their charges?

My concern is that by only presenting the dark side, you will frighten those who need care but will hesitate to get it for fear of being ripped off.

Here in Leisure World we have an excellent social services department that very carefully screens care-givers before referring them. Also, it is rare that, in cases of abuse, neighbors do not report them to social services.

As for the poor souls who are financially taken, warnings are being issued continually to be aware of con artists and to remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it is!”

SHIRLEY O’ CONNOR, Laguna Hills