Watching out for Financial Elder Abuse

By Cathy Jo Cress, MSW
Associate Geriatric Care Manager
Santa Cruz, CA

and Bunni Dybnis, MA, MFT,CMC
Certified Geriatric Care Manager
Los Angeles, CA

“Financial Fraud is the number one consumer protection issue for AARP” claimed Anthony Catillio who exposed a program that provides free lunch seminars that mislead seniors and sucked them into losing untold millions. AARP estimated that 9% of seniors had attended a free financial seminar last year.  This means at least 5.9 million people were potentially duped, according to financial writer Milt Freudenheim, who writes for the New York Times.

These situations are appalling, but the terrible truth is the worst perpetrators are not professional con artists.  The most insidious elder fiscal abusers are not someone running a scam like Bernie Madoff or crooks that offer free lunches to retirees then swindle their money.   The most vicious financial abusers are most frequently the older person’s own family or someone they know.  All we have to do is look at the infamous Brooke Astor case.  Her son Anthony was convicted of siphoning millions from her before she died and sentenced this winter to one to three years in prison. If it can happy to one of our country’s most “elite families”, it can and does happen on “Main Street”.

A survey of State Adult Protective Services (APS) Abuse of Adults over sixty showed that the most common financial abuser was a son or daughter. Adult children perpetrated 33 % of the fiscal exploitation substantiated by APS. Other family members were the next biggest group investigated by APS. These other usurious kin represented almost 22% of the financial abusers reported nationwide to adult protective services.

Recognize some red flags of the financial abuse of seniors.

Temptations for a cash strapped caregiver with a sympathetic story can be great.  Limiting access to any significant amount of cash and setting up a petty cash system, which includes regular review of receipts, can reduce the risk of the on-going exploitation of vulnerable, often good-hearted clients.

As the GCM earns the trust of older clients and family members, they are well positioned to monitor signs of specific family members taking financial advantage of older people’s money.  GCMs need to be vigilant in opening the conversation if they suspect a family member is changing their financial relationship with an older adult. It is not uncommon, especially during this economic downturn, for a desperate adult child to play on their parent/child relationship and manipulate parents into providing financial support. This is often well beyond what the elder can afford often jeopardizing their own financial stability. If the GCM detects potential financial manipulation they are required as mandated to report the situation to Adult Protective Services. This can be done by calling local hot line or faxing in a form available through their office.   Involving an elder law attorney, with expertise in this field, trusted family members and community resources, including local Fiduciary Abuse Specialist Team can work to protect the older person and maintain the family integrity. In addition to looking at this as a way of protecting the older adult, family therapy or mediation often can delve more successfully into resolutions to on-going family pathology.

GCMs can provide protections against unrelated friends or acquaintances or private caregivers committing undue influence, one the most insidious and legally complicated forms of elder fiscal abuse. This alarm bell for elder abuse occurs when an individual who is stronger or more powerful gets a weaker individual to do something that the weaker person would not have done otherwise. That stronger person, often a caregiver, family member, friend or confidence man, uses various techniques or manipulations, over time, to gain power and compliance.  Caregivers can do this because the older person is dependent on them for care and emotional support. This makes this relationship potentially deadly. Family members can set up this same scenario and take advantage of an older person by slowly controlling and isolating them from other family and friends. . Caregiver’s often set up schemes of undue influence if there is no one monitoring an older person. They then take advantage of this lack of monitoring by bilking the older person of large amounts of money, changing their estate or supporting their own family at the expense of the elder. . Undue influence is one of the two most common grounds for contesting a will of estate. In the role of geriatric care manager the GCM can reduce the dependence on one individual by making sure there is more that one unrelated caregiver on the case, and provide other outside supports to assure the elder there are many people available to provide for their wellbeing.  Not only can the GCM reduce the fears and dependency of the elder, but they can potentially preserve the family estate so it goes where it rightfully belongs.

By reducing their access to the older person, geriatric care managers can protect clients against con artists, door-to-door salesmen, mail and telemarketing schemes purporting to offer the opportunity to “get rich quick.” GCMs can set up systems to screen mail and telephone calls for the vulnerable older adult.  When the situation is extreme, this often means diverting mail to a trusted relative, professional or post office box and only introducing appropriate mail to the elder.GCM’s can engage older people in daily activities and enjoyable social engagements to combat the lonesomeness that often leads to  elders seeking out  the crooks that offer free lunches, companionship and other enticements.

GCMs need to be knowledgeable about the symptoms of elder abuse so they can respond proactively and reduce the damage to these victims. Starting with an assessment which identifies the red flags, a plan of care can be developed, as we do for any other need. Fiscal elder abuse can be avoided by treating the isolation and loneliness that older people often suffer. Unlike in the past, families often live long distance, are pre-occupied with their own work and family commitments and are not there to monitor their older relatives.  GCMs as their surrogates are well positioned to step in to protect older and dependent adults from those who prey on the vulnerability of this population.   GCMs are able to arrange daily activities that meet the elders’ interests, preferences and social needs. Care managers can be there to introduce new routines, make sure they get there and monitor whether the plan is successful. GCMs are well positioned to not only enhance the lives of seniors, but prevent elder abuse as a consequence.