It’s time to talk about something that really boils my blood so to speak. I know I’ve talked about other scams and how people have become victims of them, and I hate so much that people lose their hard earned money. Elder Financial Abuse or Elder Abuse in general just makes me especially angry.
You might be asking yourself why or what makes Elder Abuse different than any other scam because aren’t phishing scams and online dating scams Elder Abuse as well? Technically yes, but true Elder Abuse happens when someone who is TRUSTED or family members even, are tasked with taking care of someone elderly or disabled and takes full advantage of them which can be both financially and physically. I’m going to talk about two people who were recently arrested in Kansas for just that very thing and how I’ve ran into other cases of Elder Abuse as a Teller and then talk about ways to spot and hopefully stop Elder Financial Abuse.
Two Arrested for Elder Abuse in Kansas
This is actually a pretty recent story in Kansas. Two people from the town of Larned have been charged with Elder Abuse as well as financial mistreatment. They did both physical and financial abuse to a 90 year old woman who also happened to be a veteran from the Air Force.
There was a two and a half year investigation from the county’s sheriff department. They apparently caused financial abuse of this elderly woman to the tune of at least $100,000.
This couple apparently had been abusing the 90 year old woman between 2015 and 2022 so it had been going on for awhile. They do have a number of charges against them, but at this time they haven’t been sentenced. They are supposed to have a preliminary hearing on January 21st.
Now the news story doesn’t say how the criminal couple came in contact with this elderly individual and why it appears she might’ve been in their care, but it definitely did start last decade. I can say though that I’m very glad they’ve been caught and hopefully brought to full justice. The physical as well as the financial parts of the abuse is just absolutely sickening to me and I have no doubt that the money they took from her was meant to be used for the woman’s care and other fiances that she may have had.
Sadly, I have seen other examples of Elder Abuse, but I’ve seen mostly the financial aspect of it as a bank teller over the years and I will talk about that next. If you want to read the full news story, you can check that out here.
My Experience As A Teller with Elder Abuse
Elder Financial Abuse happens more than people realize as you can see from the example up above. I’ve talked about my experiences with other scams that my customers have had to deal with and there have been some that, sadly, have gone through Elder Financial Abuse. There are some protocols at the institution I work for if we see signs of that happening and can verfiy that it truly is happening.
I did remember a gentleman I used to see regularly who would always do a specific set of transactions from his account that I was very familiar with. He used to also come in with his wife who was partially blind, but they were both very nice to deal with. That’s one thing I’ve always been very happy with, and that’s that I have great and friendly customers that I get to interact with on a daily bases.
Later on, this man’s wife started having medical complications and I do know that he had to bring her to a hospital to have surgey to help with some of those complications she was dealing with. Unfortunately, something happened during the surgery and she ended up passing away. I felt really bad when I had heard what had happened and I also knew that he now has to try and raise a couple of kids that they adopted and they are certainly a handful.
A time after what had happened to his wife, he started asking why his money seemed to be going a lot lower than it typically does especially at a faster rate. Now this man was elderly and had issues walking, but he always had a cane he used when walking. Anyway, I did some investingating as well as my manager at the time and there were definitely a lot of charges that did seem out of the ordinary, especially for a person like him.
I remember seeing a lot of charges in the nearby city of Wichita at restaurants, entertainment places, blowling alleys, and movie theatres, just to name a few. He did say that at times his debit card seemed to be missing. So we decided to shut it down and get him a new one. The charges did stop for awhile until his new debit card came in and after a time, those type of charges started up again. My manager then started to suspect Elder Abuse and so there is an agency we have to call once we suspect that and a report has to be filled out so that an investigation can begin. Come to find out, he definitely was having Elder Financial Abuse happening and it was his two adopted children (who were teenagers at this time) as well as a caretaker who had been assigned to him.
Once that was found out, the gentelman at first blamed us saying that we allowed it to happen, but we told him there’s only so much we can do at first and we did shut down his initial debit card to try and prevent further charges like that, but unfortunately, the kids and caretaker knew we he kept his debit card as well as his checkbook and were able to drain his account of money. We finally had to shut down his checking account and open a new one, but he didn’t get to use it much after that as he ended up passing away due to an advanced form of cancer we didn’t know he had. This really made me sad because his own children as well as someone who was assigned to help take care of him, had all taken advantage of him. I do know after his passing, his checking account became fully restricted so that no one could drain his account and since there were no longer any beneficiaries, all the remaining funds were turned over to the state. I don’t know what happened to his children or the caretaker.
This is just one example of Elder Financial Abuse that I encountered during my time as a Bank Teller thus far. There are ways to spot and stop Elder Financial Abuse from happening or continuing and I will go over all of that next.
Ways to Spot and Stop Elder Financial Abuse
We live in a world where technology has made it a lot easier to take advantage of people especially those who are vulnerable which tends to be the elderly in regard to finance. There are ways though that anyone can spot signs of Elder Financial Abuse.
As I gave an exmaple of a customer who was taken advantage of, the tell signs that something is amiss are unusual financial activity. Pay attention to sudden and unexpected charges or even unusual cash withdrawals. If this is eomething they haven’t typically done before and money seems to be coming out of their account at a faster rate than what is usually normal for them, these are big signs that financial abuse is taking place.
Another sign too that financial abuse could be taking place are unusual and large wire transfers. I remember an older lady once came into my bank and wanted the branch manager to do a significantly large wire transfer the day after she deposited a large cashier’s check from another institution. After asking some probing questions about why she needed to do the wire and where it was going, my manager refused to do it because everything the customer told her did not sound legitimate at all especially since she said she had only met this person online and needed “help” getting back home from overseas.
Sometimes a sudden change in a power of attorney document, trust, or a will can be a sign of potential Elder Financial Abuse. I remember another case that happened more recently at my branch where an elderly lady constantly let her grandson take money out of her account and we even had proof that her grandson had been forging her signature on some of the checks. She refused to do anything about it though and then there was a sudden change as another family member came up and had documents where they would be taking over the checking account as a trust. The grandson could no longer take money out of the account, but things, however seemed a bit odd with that and the corporate office decided to end the entire relationship with them.
One of the best ways to prevent Elder Abuse is to find a very trusted family member or friend (someone who you know would not attempt steal or cause abuse) and set up a backdoor of sorts to look at things if something seems off. They don’t have to be on the person’s bank account, but can definitely jump in and help if something seems to be a bit off or someone is trying to take advantage of their situation and the bank can be alerted quickly.
Elder Financial Abuse is on the rise and it is very important to be involved in the lives of a loved one to make sure that no one is taking advantage of the situation especially if they are up there in age. There can definitely be serious criminal charges if Elder Financial Abuse is discovered and the people doing it are caught. Financial Institutions can definitely help with investigations if Elder Abuse is suspected.