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4 More Tips To Help Prevent Elder Financial Fraud

Benchmark Senior Living hosted another helpful workshop and panel spotlighting the broad-ranging scope of elder financial abuse and some simple ways to help shore up your defenses against it.

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4 More Tips To Help Prevent Elder Financial Fraud
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Benchmark Senior Living hosted another helpful workshop and panel spotlighting the broad-ranging scope of elder financial abuse and some simple ways to help shore up your defenses against it.

Among those in attendance were Andrea Teichman, SVP and Chief General Counsel of Benchmark Senior Living; Roland Chan, SVP in Global Information Security at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Liz Loewy, former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and current COO and Co-founder of Eversafe; Mike Festa, AARP State Director for Massachusetts; and Eric Rosenbaum, an Elder Affairs officer for the city of Newton, MA , in a panel moderated by TV journalist Leslie Gaydos.

The conversation was broad-ranging, interactive, and featured lots of questions and discussion. The key tips passed along were:

  1. Elder financial abuse is widespread—and becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some estimates tallied potential abuse damages across the economy as high as $5 trillion in the next year, which is roughly the size of all of the economies of Latin America combined. Talk focused around an event that recently came to light of a sophisticated attack on a corporate CEO whose voice was faked by hackers in a call to a subordinate. The call wound up costing the CEO $243,000 and is the first public case of a voice being faked to dupe a victim.
  2. Consider going beyond a credit freeze. Credit freezes are nice because they’re offered for free as of September 2018, but they only prevent a scammer from opening new credit-based accounts. They don’t, for example, monitor old or seldom-used accounts or monitor depository accounts that may be opened in your name. In order to do this, you may need to pay for a service such as Eversafe in order to make sure you’re covered completely.
  3. Have a plan, stick to it, and make sure you have many observers. A single loved one, adult child, or spouse may not be able to track all the accounts or financial vulnerabilities that a loved one may have. Make sure you prepare the necessary paperwork, such as an electronic and hard copy of HIPPA forms, powers of attorney, and health care directives, and that your network of loved ones is aware of the signs to look for in the case of financial abuse.
  4. Prevention is key because, in many cases, once the money’s gone, it’s gone. Over and over again, the audience heard stories of frauds that didn’t have tidy resolutions because the money had gone overseas. Once the money is out of the country, panelists stressed that it is very, very difficult to recover. Additionally, prevention becomes important because panelists also mentioned serious negative health outcomes for victims of financial crime and exploitation. Stay up-to-date with resources like AARP's Fraud Watch Network, which has a hotline you can call if you suspect you or a loved one has fallen victim. Additionally, the Fraud Watch Network webpage has up-to-date tips on prevention and rundowns of the latest "hot" scams so you can understand what you're looking for.
Financial fraud and vulnerability will continue to be a big topic in the aging and healthcare space, so make sure your loved ones are properly prepared and inoculated against the most obvious forms of it by following the tips above. Let us know in the comments: have you taken steps to prevent financial crime or elder abuse for a loved one?
Date posted: Sep 30, 2019
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Most financial exploitation and elder abuse come at the hands of a family member. Children think the are entitled to their inheritance early! And they aren’t always willing and sometimes able to care for an elderly person. Beware of scams, but watch your family. They may become you worst enemy. I know this because I investigated elder abuse, neglect and financial exploitation for over eight years in the largest county in Ohio.

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I have paid over $135,000 to a life insurance company in an effort to retain as much of the $100,000 face value for my 85 year old wife as possible. I feel the insurer has used every trick in the book to keep me paying into the policy over the near 30 years that I have held the policy. Now the insurer intends to take the policy to a zero amount of insurance. I have had a running dispute with the Service Department for twenty years and involved the State Insurance Division over the past five years who were helpful but unable to fine the insurer. I may compile a letter to the President of the parent company detailing the numerous misstatements, partial statements and numerous other abuses and may choose to share this with you when complete. Your recent write up on elder abuse caught my attention.

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