80-year-old dementia patient signs up for matchmaking service and racks up $8,500 tab

The son of an elderly Florida man says he was shocked to find an $8,500 charge on his dad’s credit card from a matchmaking service — given his pop has dementia and couldn’t go on a date if he wanted to.To add insult to injury, the Oklahoma firm — called The Matchmaking Company — only gave a partial refund after a Florida news station began poking around, according to News 6 in Orlando.The 80-year-old man’s son, Blake Mooney, said that at first, he tried to get the money back on his own.But he was stymied by the company’s Byzantine call system, he said.“There’s nobody to talk to,” the North Carolina man told the station.

“There’s nobody who can help you in any way other than [asking], ‘Would you like to sign up? Would you like to have some matchmaking done for you?’ ”The family’s saga began in June, when Mooney’s dad took a ride-share from a Lake County assisted-living facility to The Matchmaking Company’s Winter Park office, News 6 said.A half-hour later, the elderly man signed a contract that entitled him to 12 dates for a whopping $8,495.His dad’s mental state isn’t always readily apparent, Mooney said.But it would surface fairly quickly during an in-depth conversation, the son said.“Once [the conversation] starts involving financial situations, numbers and dates, he would have no idea,” Mooney said.

“You could call him right now and ask him what the date is, and he wouldn’t be able to recall it for you.”For example, his dad listed his birth year as 1922 on the application paperwork, which would have made the octogenarian about 102 years old, the station said.Mooney isn’t even sure how his widower dad found the company, which claims to “create long-lasting, authentic, and loving relationships” for clients.“He can’t go on a date,” said Mooney, who added that his dad barely recalls signing the contract.“He’s got dementia.”That created a big issue for his son, who was left to figure out how to cle...