Part 2 Of A Three-Part Series On Elder Abuse That Appeared In The Taconic Press Papers And The Independent, August 2006
In this second installment of our series on Elder Abuse the focus is on financial abuse and exploitation. This kind of abuse or exploitation can be less obvious to the senior and others than physical or psychological abuse. However, the need for assistance with banking, paying bills, and making purchases can become as important as assistance with other daily needs. That need, and a senior's isolation, boredom, and decreased mental acuity, may render her vulnerable to financial abuse or exploitation just as it does other forms of abuse. This article describes how to recognize the problem and the two primary types of perpetrators of abuse and exploitation: "insiders" and mass-exploiters. The next installment will discuss what you can do to enable those who are trusted to have the legal power to protect and care for you or someone you know.
Insiders are those who by virtue of their one-on-one relationship and presumed trust are in a position to access funds or, through duress or coercion, obtain power and property that can leave a senior destitute. An insider might be a relative or friend, or it might be someone who was appointed either by the senior (under a power of attorney, for example) or by the Surrogate's Court to be a financial guardian. The person might be someone close to the senior or someone who befriended them as a target or threatened them by taking advantage of the senior's loneliness or confusion.
Insider abuse may include stealing cash from around the house, fraudulently passing the senior's checks, getting the senior to add them to a bank account and then withdrawing from it, or arranging to have property transferred to their name "legally" by inducing the senior to cooperate either through misleading information or duress such as forcing the senior to cooperate under some kind of threat, physical or otherwise.
What should alert you to a problem? The behavior of the insider may offer clues. Are they becoming too interested in the senior's financial affairs? Are they isolating the senior from others to increase their control over them? Are they being unresponsive to queries from the senior or other relatives, or providing insufficient explanations for the use of funds or for suspect expenses on the senior's behalf? Vigilance and attentiveness to financial and household management affairs is not the same as paranoia; it is a matter of personal responsibility, and responsibility for those we care about.
Mass-exploiters, on the other hand, use the power of mass-communication to reach those who may no longer be able to thoughtfully evaluate persuasive offers of illusory benefits. Schemes perpetrated through phone, TV, mail and other forms of mass marketing targeted to seniors are insidious and growing at an alarming rate. While consumer fraud is certainly not limited to the elderly, their vulnerability feeds its growth. We are all barraged by telemarketers, junk mail to win prizes, televised inducements to buy, credit card offers, computer spammed solicitations, and obscure charities. For most of us, these are almost daily annoyances that we screen out the way we might swat mosquitoes. However, loneliness, boredom and compromised mental capacity, might cause a senior to be far less cautious.
A prosecutor's office in San Diego, California, reports having investigated a potential victim based on a report by a loss prevention officer at a local Wal-Mart. The woman is described as seeming articulate, coherent and charming, yet she acknowledged feeling "hypnotized" by a lottery scam that led her to withdraw and wire enormous sums daily over several weeks. By the time the problem was reported, the woman had lost much of her savings to the scam. Perhaps her decision-making was affected by even mild vascular dementia, which might impair logical reasoning of persons otherwise apparently competent in their thought and actions.
One line of defense for seniors is at the very place where problems may occur. Financial institutions have sophisticated systems for risk control and account monitoring, and are thus in a position to monitor activity that might be suspicious. At the human level, the tellers often recognize their customers and may notice unusually large or frequent withdrawals, while computer technology can be used to scan for unusual activity that occurs beyond the branch office.
Federal funding for a Philadelphia APS office enabled it to work with Wachovia Bank on a pilot reporting project. By training a small group of banking personnel, including loss investigators, they were able to detect, track and address 21 substantiated cases of abuse in 24 weeks. The sums at risk in these customer accounts were considerable, and yet this was just one bank's experience in one brief period of time. Extrapolating that to millions of seniors and their accounts suggests the enormity of the problem. (See www.aoa.gov/eldfam/Elder_Rights for more information)
Reporting of financial abuse or exploitation is not mandatory in all states, including New York. A report prepared for the National Association of APS Administrators describes the results of a 2001 survey of state financial abuse reporting requirements and APS programs. The findings are based on the 35 responses. Of those, 29 states have mandatory reporting of financial exploitation, but only 11 of those include financial institutions among those required to report. If not required by law, then reporting is on a voluntary basis. Twenty-eight of the states reported 38,015 cases of financial exploitation actually reported to APS. Based on a 1999 study, it is estimated that only 1 of every 14 cases is reported. If that estimate is applied to these results and the US overall, the actual number of cases might be as high as 969,612 every year. (See the report at http://www.elderabusecenter.org/pdf7publication/NAAPSA_9.pdf.)
What can you do for the seniors you know? If you suspect financial abuse or exploitation is occurring, speak to someone - another relative, a lawyer, or call your local Adult Protective Services office (at the Dept of Social Services). Many victims are afraid to speak up either because they have been badgered by the insider, or they are embarrassed, and others worry about become enmeshed in a problem that's not their own. Without intervention the senior's property and financial resources might be lost. You only need to have a good faith belief that there might be a problem. Reporting of any kind of abuse can be made confidentially - you do not have to become directly involved.
To learn more about the problem of financial abuse or exploitation, there are numerous sources available on the internet, or you can call New York State's Department of the Aging for a brochure. Also, the FDIC has published "A Special Guide for Seniors and Families" which addresses both "inside jobs" and more wide-reaching frauds against consumers, and the elderly in particular (www.fdic.gov/consumers).
©Andrea Lowenthal 2006