My parent is giving way too much to charities. How can I stop this?

Here's how I put a stop to the solicitations: a Post Office Box and a change of address form! Nothing more will come to the house, and you, the dear child, will be able to intercept the bad mail that is arriving.

You will also be able to call the cc companies and request a new card number be sent to the PO box. You will then have a cc in the name of parent, but the old one won't work. When you go out with gramps, you can supply a prepaid card that you pay for out of the checking account.
This requires that you have your name on checking as POA. Get gramps to the bank before he is completely out of his wits, as the bank has to have original signatures on their own forms - brokerage houses also. Don't make these joint accounts, but POA accounts so that you can pay the bills. "if he's in the hospital, or if the property taxes come due and he is unable to find the bill."

Charities will not remove names. The people who do these things are in the business of raising funds. You can address it with your parent and let them know they cannot afford to do it. Is your parent still competent? If so, then there is not much you can do other than talk to him. Do you have his POA for finances? If you do and you think that he is not competent to handle his own money, you can make it so where most of his money is not available to him. This will start a war, but sometimes someone needs to take measures to stop charity donations.

I often feel that charity fundraisers have hearts of stone. They can target people who are older because they tend to give more money than others. Then they can put people on a "sucker list" if they give a donation. They sell this list to other charities. Someone who gives once may find himself the target of multiple charities looking for money.

I dealing with this issue with my Dad also. He has dementia and has been giving out his credit card info over the phone. So far the charges are small but once these creeps score they keep calling cause they know they have an easy mark.

I've had limited success calling the bank and the so called called charities to get the charges reversed even though I have financial POA. Ultimately my only choice if this continues will be to get the charge card away from him and supply him with just enough cash to get by. It will be ugly but it may have to be done. I'd rather have him pissed off than squander thousands on these crooks.

I had the same problem with my father. It was an absolute nightmare. I called them and wrote them and for the most part put a dent in all of it, but he had gotten on the sucker list.Once you are on there, unfortunately, it is for life. Reagans Ranch was the worse, they were asking for thousands of dollars on a weekly basis, they are vultures. So, I checked his mailbox everyday hundreds of letters and threw them out. It is all you can do.

We dealt with this too, with my FIL who thought he'd be the next Publishers Clearing House winner! We were living with him, so I snagged his mail once he went to bed. I found his hiding places! I wrote over 75 letters, which my hubby signed as his POA. Letters said he had died. Yes, it was a fiblet, but the letters stopped, for the most part. We even got a few condolence letters. I still laugh about it, but it was a pain in the tush at the time! P.O. box is a great idea, or change of address to your place. Good luck!!!

If your father is "competent" in the legal sense, alas, he can make any decisions he wants and spend his money as he pleases. Your best recourse is to convince him to stop giving or to give less. Would it work to decide with him how much he can afford to give each month, pick one charity, and set that up as an automatic payment? Could he remember that he did that and say no to other requests? If he agrees that he needs to limit his giving but has a hard time saying no, perhaps he would agree to have his telephone number changed, which would stop at least some of solicitations for a while.

If the dear generous man is not competent to make decisions in his own best interests and you have his POA, then you have a lot more flexibility to do things like limit the funds he has access to.

If you are the agent under your father's power of attorney, you might consider taking away the checkbook and the credit cards and substituting a credit card available from True Link Financial. That prepaid debit card can be programmed to only buy certain things and only be used at certain stores. You can receive a printout of purchases.

I have posted this before on a different stream. This is what has worked for us. My 84 year old husband has Vascular Dementia, diagnosed May 2015.
He routinely brings in the mail. So beating him to the mailbox is not part of the solution. He usually listens to me when I tell him those are SCAM letters, and need to go into the trash.
Now for the phone calls:
We both have android cell phones. I took our phones to the shop and asked a tech person to do this:
The only time his phone RINGS is when me, my children or his children initiate a phone call. All other phone calls he get are silent, do not even vibrate the phone. He keeps his phone in its holster on his belt. Thank God.
Every evening I check his phone and delete all the SPAM calls he received. Sometimes there are as many as SIX. If I have time, I put those numbers on a reject list.
So far this has worked. So far.
Oh, and also, as he is still able to drive, but SHOULD NOT, (he gets lost) and sometimes gets into his pickup truck and leaves without telling me, I am able to track him with a gps device on his phone. I have had to go find him before 2 towns away. As long as his phone is charged up, and he is wearing it, I can keep up with him. He is VERY physically fit. He walks 2 to 3 miles a day, up and down hills. I am 74 and can barely keep up with him.

My 88 yr old mother did this a few yrs back-gave more to charities than she should have, but wouldn't give to Humane Society or SPCA because she was sure they would send her a cat or dog! So there are a "few" reasoning problems there. She was also doing heavy spending on Publishers Clearing House mailings that she got--$400-500. When I saw that I started getting those items and sending them all back. (Went online and got junk mail stopped.)She would not give up her checks to me-I am her daughter and have POA for her. It took the man on the phone with "such a nice voice" who promised her a new car and chance of winning millions of dollars. She sent him all the money, $5000, she had left in her savings account. Not a lot to some but that was her cushion for any emergencies she might have. By the time she told me what she had done the check had cleared and it was gone. Also she gave him her bank, credit card information as well. I also intercepted a packet of bank papers for a ready to sign mortgage application on her paid off home-for another $42,000. He was able to get $14,000. off her credit card. The bank forgave half of it and she is having to pay off the remaining $7000.
I would caution that you need to get his checking account, credit cards away from him and in your control ASAP. These scammers are heartless and don't care if their stories for help or promising the moon leave your loved one out in the street.
My mother can now see how wrong that was to give her money away but now way too late. (I had talked many times to her about giving her personal information away to someone over the phone.)
I would say don't wait till it's too late after someone has talked him out of everything he has with a good story.

I could write a BOOK about this. It all started with Publishers Clearinghouse (may Ed McMahon burn in H3LL forever), where you just send in just a couple bucks to enter. And the charities. OMFG the charities. You get on a 'sucker list', it expands exponentially, and it goes on and on and on and it WILL NOT STOP. Oh, you think you can put their name on 'do not send' lists, and try stopping the tsunami, but it will not work. 1) Take charge of the checkbook and if they still are writing checks to Save The Cetaceans or Chihuahua Rescue of Podunk, MN, offer to drop the mail off 'on your way home'. 2) Change of address. Let them have a fit, but put in a change of address to have the stacks of craap sent to you to deal with. I was throwing out up to 50 begging letters a week sent to my mother, when she wasn't looking I smuggled them out of the house. And took the mail to 'the post office'. Good luck. It's a real problem and can get very costly.