Apr 13, 2015 | aging, Alzheimer's disease, diminished cognition, elderly, finra
Thwarting Elder Abuse: Who Should You Call When You Suspect It?
Imagine this: it happens. Abuse seems to be going on right in front of you with an aging client. A family friend is manipulating her, and you’re pretty sure about that. What would be the first thing you could do?
Perhaps you’ve taken a class or training in senior specific issues like dementia. (You’ll be especially knowledgeable if you’ve gotten training with our Aging Investor.com webinars!) You’re determined to stop it if you can.
You may think of calling Adult Protective Services, but you also know that APS is limited, and addresses situations that are criminal in nature. Sometimes when an elder seems to be going along with the abuse, APS may have its hands tied. For example when a friend close to the elder is pressuring an elder into giving him large amounts of cash and draining the elder’s bank account, the elder may not show concern. The aging person could be subject to undue influence or perhaps intimidated and afraid to say “no”. When the victim seems willing, you have to look beyond APS to try to thwart the abuser.
One thing every professional needs to have in every file is a list of contacts your client has provided to you, as you have requested, to use when something seems amiss or when your client shows signs of memory problems. You need specific written permission from your client to communicate with the people on the list. The list should include trusted family members, the client’s estate planning attorney, a long term friend, clergy or trusted other professional such as the client’s accountant.
When you have the client’s permission to contact these individuals, you can start asking questions about the suspected abuser. If the abuser is someone on the list, ask everyone else their impressions. People do change and financial desperation or greed can cause someone to misuse the trust the elder has in them.
Thinking it’s really none of your business that your client has a person who is taking advantage of her is not the answer to our massive problem of elder abuse in our country. We all must do something when we can. We have to speak up, get nosy, ask questions and take an active role. In asking the client’s list of contacts about the issue, you may learn a lot. Perhaps the “friend” has a gambling or drug problem. Perhaps your client just lost a spouse and is very vulnerable. Others on the contact list who may not see what you see can get involved in looking into the situation after becoming aware of your suspicions. Working together, a group can present a united front and create a strategy to stop the thefts and manipulation.
A very helpful resource for any professional is to search for and know competent elder abuse lawyers who have the skills, knowledge and will to step in and try whatever is possible to protect the aging person or her heirs. You can find one by searching your local county Bar Association website. Most have a directory or lawyer referral service. Lawyers are listed by specialty area. For example, in San Francisco, the Bar Association has a listing for the category of elder abuse. Under it there is a sublisting “Financial Abuse by Family or Friends”. That category will likely lead to someone who can help evaluate a case.
When the abuser has talked the elder into changing her will and disinheriting her children in favor of the so-called friend, that gives the elder abuse lawyer something to work with. Elder abuse litigators will generally listen to a possible case and give you an opinion about whether it is a matter they can handle. And aggressive proactive steps can be taken to thwart an abuser determined to clean out the assets of a supposedly willing victim.
If the abuser is a bad apple within the financial services industry, there are specialty lawyers who prosecute claims handled in FINRA arbitrations. They can be found through the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association.
Not every senior who is being abused financially is able to see it. But those who have a role in the elder’s life can do much to at least try to stop the abuse. Loss of financial judgment is a reality that can occur as people age. If we don’t want to see more destitute seniors who were victimized, think of how you can help. Ask questions, call contacts and refer to an elder abuse attorney if you see this problem.
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Attorney, Mediator
Dr. Mikol Davis, Psychologist, Gerontologist
Feb 6, 2015 | aging, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, scammers, senior investor
Competition for clients has always been there, but as investors age, something you might not have anticipated can happen. The vultures are out there. Competition with you for their invested assets can become an increased threat when an older client’s judgment is compromised. With impaired judgment, they might fall for the “free meal” seminar, a device to get them to buy an inappropriate product.
An older client who has always behaved a certain way about her investments can go through changes because of cognitive decline. You have absolutely no control over this process and in fact, you may not even notice it initially. Cognitive impairment can come on very subtly at first. What it can do over time is to cause your client’s ability to make good judgments about finances to go downhill.
A person who is actually ok financially may start to worry unreasonably that he is going to run out of money. Or a spouse gets ill and the costs of care skyrocket, making your client think he needs to do something fast to get a high return on his investments. There are a lot of slick salesmen out there who know this and count on it. They are the first ones to offer your client a free meal and a so-called “financial education seminar”.
According to FINRA research, 64 percent of those responding to a survey of people age 40 and over had been invited to an “educational” seminar with a free meal offered. FINRA, the SEC and state regulators conducted more than 100 examinations involving free-meal seminars.
They found that in half of the cases, the sales materials contained claims that appeared to be exaggerated, misleading or otherwise unwarranted. And fully 13 percent of the seminars appeared to involve fraud.
These highly polished and sleazy sales people are more than happy to tell your client that they can do a lot better for the client than you are doing with your old, conservative and safe investment strategy. They dress well, have engaging personalities and are looking for someone who is fearful or easily manipulated. That could be your client. No matter how educated, smart or experienced your client is, anyone can suffer from loss of cognitive ability. Aging investors may not be as sharp as they were in a younger day, due to memory loss or other issues. The early warning signs of memory loss also suggest erosion of financial judgment. That can lead to impulsive purchases and lack of financial judgment about the risks.
What can you do about this? You have an opportunity to do a campaign with all your older investors which can enhance your image, increase the frequency of contact with them and educate them in the process. It could be a series of emails or personal letters. Remember that FINRA has issued a warning to all investors to be wary of the free meal “educational” seminar. You are the good guy or gal, bringing them this important information from regulators who want to protect them. The body of your email or letter can contain this information:
For every consumer, note these points FINRA wants you to keep in mind before you attend any “investment” or “financial education” seminar, especially with a free meal.
1. Investment seminars are intended to sell you something. Their purpose in not merely educational.
2. Beware of the persuasive effect of a high end venue, an expensive meal and a smooth, well-dressed presenter. These are collectively designed to impress you, but it does not mean that the opportunity being pitched it right for you.
3. Find out who is really sponsoring the event. At times, insurance companies, mutual funds or other companies offering their products are behind the pitch, financing the event and expecting that the speaker, who could be someone you know or recognize, will use the event to drive sales of their products.
4. You can use FINRA’s Broker Check (800) 280-9999 to see if the presenter is licensed to offer financial products. If the sponsor is an insurance agent, find out if he is licensed through your state department of insurance or the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. You can find out information about the one offering products for sale through your state’s securities regulator or the North American Securities Administrator’s association at (202) 737-0900.
Feel free to copy this right into a letter to your clients today. Vary it with your own words and headline. Anyone age 50 and up would be a good candidate to receive it.
Stay in communication with your aging clients.
Let them know you are concerned about the prevalence of these offerings by supposedly qualified people and ask if they’ve been solicited to attend any of them. If they tell you they want to go to a seminar, dig deeper. Ask questions. Offer to check out the presenters. If you step up the frequency of contact, particularly with an automated system of emailing your clients, you can only enhance the relationships you have with them. And in the process, you can not only build loyalty but perhaps save some of them from being seduced away from your responsible management by educating them about potential financial danger.
We encourage you to comment and share your own stories so that we all can become better informed and educated about new scams and ways to protect our older clients and family members.
Carolyn L. Rosenblatt, R.N., Elder Law Attorney & Dr. Mikol Davis, Psychologist, Gerontologist
AgingParents.com & AgingInvestor.com
Nov 22, 2014 | aging, aging investor, Alzheimer's disease, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, senior citizen investor, senior investor
We know that abuse of seniors is a growing problem. Based on information from the National Center on Elder Abuse, the majority of abusers are family members. However, only 44 out of 1000 instances of abuse are reported to authorities. Why aren’t more cases reported to the very authorities capable of stopping the abusers?
It seems to me that most family members are simply unwilling to “rat out” another family member even when they know that abuse is going on. When it comes to the seniors themselves, there is shame and embarrassment associated with being taken advantage of by someone close, especially someone they surely trusted. There is hesitation and fear. They want to talk about it but not do anything about it. The reluctance to report the abuse to Adult Protective Services is not limited to the seniors who can’t bear to call the authorities about a son, daughter or other relative.
I recently received a call from a distressed sister of a brother that she was convinced was stealing from their parents. He had total control over their parents, one of whom had dementia. His parents had appointed him as the agent on both the Durable Power of Attorney and the Advance Healthcare Directive. This gave him the legal authority to make both financial decisions without being accountable to anyone else and all healthcare decisions as well. I listened patiently to all the reasons she thought her brother was taking her parents’ money and using it for himself. I asked her if she had called Adult Protective Services.” No”, she said. When I asked why not she said “I don’t want to get my brother in trouble”. Where is the logic in that?
In another case, the elder herself had called. “I gave my grandson a big loan and he hasn’t paid it back,” she said. “But now I need the money to live on”. She described how her favorite grandson had taken title to her mobile home and gotten a loan, even after she had “loaned” him most of her savings. I explained that her chances of getting paid back were probably not very good, but the least she could do was to report what had happened to authorities. I advised her that taking a “loan” from an 80 year old and not paying it back would likely be considered elder abuse and it should be reported to APS. “Would my grandson go to jail?” she asked. I told her I didn’t know but it can happen when someone has committed this crime of elder abuse. She said, “I don’t want my grandson to go to jail”. Unfortunately, I am sure she did not follow up or do anything more about the problem.
Seniors like the 80-year-old woman are typical of why elder abuse does not get reported and therefore prosecuted more often, even when a family member is well aware of what is going on and knows that it is wrong. They would rather suffer impoverishment than be the one to report abuse. In fact, these same victims may refuse to testify against a relative who has abused them, even when these cases are prosecuted. Charges may not stick when the victim is unwilling to testify, unless there are independent records to prove the case in court.
It is as much a problem of our emotions and fears as it is of the wrongdoing itself. We somehow justify the actions, we look the other way or we fear what justice will do to our abusive relative.
I wonder, where is the anger at a crime against a person who is easily taken advantage of by the abuser? Where is the advocacy for the vulnerable person who is also our relative? Why are we remaining silent in this growing, $2.9 billion dollar a year problem?
I would be willing to guess that there is someone reading this whose client has a financial abuser in a their family or knows of a family where this has taken place. I urge you to speak up. To my knowledge, you can remain anonymous in your reporting, just as you can with any crime. Whether or not the criminal justice system can prove the crime is not your problem. It is your problem to carry the knowledge of financial abuse with you and to do nothing to protect the elder. One day it could be you who is victimized.
We are all encountering an aging population and the crime of opportunity of abusing elders is not going away. I am hopeful that we will show enough concern, enough responsibility and enough guts to do the right thing when we see a wrong that needs our attention.
Oct 20, 2014 | aging, aging investor, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, scammers, senior citizen investor, senior investor
As a financial professional, you may not be aware of what is going on in your elderly clients’ daily lives, but families sometimes find out about scammers who have victimized their loved ones. You could come across them too. An adult child of your client may mention a situation that is alarming or your clients may tell you themselves about this “great product” they’ve gotten. If it sounds odd, start asking questions.
Here’s an example:
According to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, an adult daughter discovered that her aging parents were spending thousands of dollars on supplements to fix a wide range of health problems. The scammers were from Las Vegas based Leading Health Source, and they had taken advantage of the elderly couple’s vulnerability to their sales pitch. It might not have been so bad if they had simply sold the couple a reasonable amount of nutritional supplements. But over a period of 20 months Leading Health Source had ripped off the elders for more than $44,000, a sum they couldn’t afford.
This is the piece to which we, at AgingInvestors.com want you to pay the most attention. In this instance, the daughter took action. She went to bat for her aging parents, rather than doing nothing or considering it her parents’ problem.
Leading Edge was investigated after the daughter reported the large sum her parents had paid to them. The daughter had attended an event held by Iowa Fraud Fighters at Kirkwood Community College. Presumably, she learned there that she should file a complaint with the state Attorney General and she did so.
The outcome in this case was very good for the elders. The matter was settled, and the Attorney General’s office demanded that Leading Edge pay back everything the couple had paid to them. That meant getting a check from Leading Edge for more than $23,000 to start and having the remainder of the credit card charges reversed.
The Courier, source of this story reported that the Attorney General’s investigators found Leading Edge well aware that the people they were selling to in this case were easily manipulated. Their telemarketers’ handwritten notes indicated that the elderly woman involved had “memory” issues and that her husband had dementia.
What can you, the professional, just managing money or offering products to your aging clients learn from this?
First, note that memory issues and dementia in an aging couple is a setup for fraud and abuse. If you think your own client may have these issues, even a little, beware. You could be prosecuted if you proceed with transactions. If law enforcement is contacted or FINRA is involved, you will be scrutinized. It could be, in the above example that Leading Edge owners and principals didn’t know what their unscrupulous telemarketers were doing. Perhaps the telemarketers were motivated by a commission or other sales incentive and an easy opportunity presented itself with an easy sale. But the principals were held liable nonetheless. They either failed to supervise adequately or they looked the other way. They are consequently barred from doing business in Iowa.
The second thing to learn is that family of your client may be a very helpful asset to the ethical financial services professional trying to preserve capital for a client. Understand your client’s family relationships and whom to trust. When even a whiff of possible abuse happens, you can report it to the authorities. You don’t have to be right if you suspect something. You just have to be reasonable in what you think is reportable problem. It’s better to report it with the facts you do know and have it turn out to be a false alarm than to take the chance of not doing anything and have your client suffer the effect of theft and fraud.
Until next time,
AgingInvestor.com
Oct 4, 2014 | diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, investor, scammers, senior citizen investor, senior investor
Two ruthless swindlers were arrested in New York for tricking an elderly woman out of her multi-million-dollar property in Harlem she had owned for over 40 years.
A home care worker bilked a frail elder out of her life’s savings of $350,000.
These stories keep coming up. Family members do it. Salesmen touting unsuitable annuities do it. Realtors collude with thieves and they do it. Even lawyers do it. They prey on unsuspecting or impaired elders to rip them off.
Financial elder abuse is a problem all across the world and it’s growing. We need to be aware.
My mother in law, Alice, is 90 and still very sharp. She would be hard to fool, but I know the right thief could probably do some harm if we weren’t watching closely all that goes on financially. At least she has the good sense to question something that sounds too good to be true. Here’s an example.
She got a check in the mail for $3800, legitimate looking, advising that she was the second place winner of a sweepstakes in Canada. She does play various sweepstakes. All she had to do, of course, was to deposit it and “pay the taxes” on her “winnings”. She was advised to contact her “claims agent”. No doubt, that professional thief would have done a great job convincing someone unsuspecting to deposit the check and send “taxes”. Of course the check is rubber and the money is gone before the elder finds out that the check has bounced.
Classic scam. Alice called the number and said, “How do I know you’re legitimate?’ The thief told her if she was suspicious, she should hang up. She did. She then called my husband, Dr. Mikol Davis, who did an internet search for the phony address and told her she had just thwarted a thief. Alice is with it enough to question the check. Millions of seniors with any cognitive impairment are not so able to question things like this.
What we know from research into Alzheimer’s Disease is that one’s judgment about financial transactions may be the first thing to become impaired when the disease is in the earliest stages. “Mild cognitive impairment” as doctors may call it, is not so mild when you think about the financial damage that can result. And the elder with this early warning sign of dementia may be living independently, paying taxes on time and otherwise appearing socially normal. For a time.
Professional thieves have certainly studied what makes elders vulnerable. They buy names of people who have entered contests like sweepstakes, and troll for the isolated and lonely ones who will talk to someone on the phone. The sweepstakes officials get paid for selling the lists and no one cares what the buyer does with them.
Elders are truly sitting ducks, easy prey. Isolation, confusion, forgetfulness, and fears about running out of money can all drive the susceptibility to entering into a “deal” with a clever scammer.
If you have an aging parent or loved one with any form of mild cognitive impairment, early dementia or other disease that affects thinking and judgment, here are seven basic things family can do to reduce the risks of ripoff.
1. Check in often. If your aging parent lives alone this is crucial. One of my clients at AgingParents.com emails her dad every day to check in. Others call every day or close to it. Aging parents may not think they need this but they do.
2. Ask to be a co-signer on the main bank account in case of emergency. Some aging parents will agree and some will resist, but ask regardless. It will allow you to do online monitoring of the account activity. A “new friend” who gets money from them is a huge red flag.
3. Have your parent sign a Durable Power of Attorney appointing a competent and ethical agent, which could be you, a sibling or trusted other. If cognitive decline happens, the agent can at least get the money out of the account and put into another safer one that the impaired elder can’t access. This is one way to stop the thieves who are looking for impaired elders. Nothing in the account, no gain for them.
4. Suggest having your parent use a licensed fiduciary to handle money if they don’t want you to do it. If there are issues of not trusting you, an objective professional can protect them from abuse. You might do research to find a reputable one for them. This is also a safe bet for elders you know with no adult kids.
5. Provide and encourage parents’ connection to others. Think of isolation and loneliness as two big risk factors in why elders get financially abused. If you can provide encouragement for them to get involved in activities, it will make them less likely to want to talk to a smooth, slick “friendly” con artist on the phone.
6. Monitor who comes into your parents’ home regularly. Even the most trusted housekeeper, gardener, caregiver or bookkeeper can be tempted beyond reason when their own financial circumstances change for the worse. Your parents are all the more at risk when they trust the familiar person, who can use trust to exploit them.
7. Do background checks on any home care helpers who are hired to work for Mom or Dad. The cost is modest, and you can find out a lot: bankruptcies, poor driving records, and of course, criminal convictions and civil cases. Licensed home care agencies may do background checks, but ask to be sure.
The ripoff artists out there are both clever and relentless, but we can stop many of their opportunities. Please don’t take your aging parents’ financial judgment for granted. It can erode almost without notice, even in the brightest and most accomplished elders.
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt
Dr. Mikol Davis
AgingInvestor.com
