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Protection from Financial Elder Abuse
- 23 Comments
- Posted on Sep. 21st, 2009
Protecting your parent from financial elder abuse is an important parent care responsibility. This type of abuse robs your parent of her money
and her freedom because money equals choice when it comes to elder care services. Financial elder abuse is defined as a person taking an elder’s money or property for his/her own needs.
Abusers sometimes use threats of abandonment or make the elder feel guilty to convince the elder to turn the control of assets over to them. Sometimes, “feel good” tactics are used. The abuser befriends a lonely senior in person or over the phone or taps into greed by convincing the senior that he has won a prize.
Financial elder abuse warning signs
- Caregivers or family members who isolate the senior or speak for the senior
- Increased withdrawals or credit card charges
- Access to the elder’s account in ways that doesn’t match their abilities, for example a homebound senior making ATM withdrawals
Steps to protect against financial elder abuse:
- Protect your parents’ sensitive financial information from identity theft by securing blank checks, bank and brokerage statements and credit cards if you have service providers in their home.
- Shred incoming credit card applications and other unused financial documents.
- Monitor your parent’s accounts for unusual activity
- Discuss common financial scams with your parent. The police department will have more information about scams that are going on in your local area.
Sadly, this abuse is sometimes committed by family members. If your parent care responsibilities include serving as your parent’s agent in their power of attorney for finance, it is your responsibility to make sure your parent’s money is only used for their benefit. This may mean some tough conversations with family members and your parents around loans and monetary gifts.
It’s important as a family to discuss your parent care values around protecting your parents’ money. You can create a family agreement that outlines acceptable behavior based on your family values. It might have some of these elements:
As a family we agree that
- Mom and dad’s money is for their use and pleasure
- We will not accept loans or large monetary gifts from mom and dad unless it is part of a well thought out estate planning strategy
Has your parent been the victim of financial elder abuse? Tell us how you dealt with it.
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- 23 Comments... Add your opinion!
I was really blessed to have parents who planned ahead and included me in the planning process, making it easy for me to help and making sure both parents were well protected and cared for. These kinds of articles make me doubly glad for their wise foresight!
reply to this commentHi Kaye, Thanks for your comments. I agree parents who have the foresight to plan are a blessing to their children. The hard part is creating some checks and balances so that everyone in the family is comfortable and knows what is going on. When anyone signs a power of attorney for finance or names a successor trustee for their living trust, it is a great leap of trust in the person they have appointed.
reply to this commentOur family is going through an issue right now trying to find out what to do about a daughter who ‘cleaned out’ and left her mother bankrupt in death. We can track that she misused her credit and debit cards, and it is too late to recover any money for the grandchildren, but we are so angry at the daughter. It is making it very difficult to deal with and has torn the family apart.
The daughter has told lies to her children who are now mad at us for finding out what she did. We don’t know whether to turn it over to the police or to provide the daughter’s children with proof of what her mother did. Any help or advice would be appreciated.
reply to this commentYour Message@Shay Grazen:
reply to this commentHi Shay,
I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to your family. I agree that discussing this with an elderlaw attorney is a good step. Any solution that you seek, be thinking about how you can heal yourself and your family from what has happened.
Take care, Janice
reply to this commentMy parents set my older sisters up as Trustees in the Family Trust since I was the youngest and not as business savvy as they were. They trusted them. I am a successor Trustee.
After my parents moved in with my middle sister, she took away their credit cards and telephone and created huge obstacles to my being able to visit them. The Trust allowed for my sister’s and parent’s physician to be the sole judge of my parent’s competency so they were declared incompetent. My name was then either taken off of HIPAA forms or never put on them. The initial reason my parents moved in with my sister was so that they would not have to go into a nursing home and so that she and her husband would care for them instead. She and her husband were given my parents Health Care Power of Attorney. A $9K/month income could not pay for the $20K/month outgo for privatized medical care that my sister arranged for them instead of her caring for them which ate into their savings in a big way. Family mortgages got paid off including mine which my husband refused but couldn’t stop. Two months after being placed in Hospice care, my Dad, an ex-cop declared he was being poisoned. Noting was done about it; believe me, I tried. It was chalked up to delirium which my Dad’s Hospice nurse said he saw no evidence of. He quit working for the Hospice the same day one of my Dad’s private caregivers pulled me aside during one of my rarely allowed visits and told me she was quitting because she could no longer stand to watch my brother-in-law over-medicating my Dad. Instead of that health care worker being applauded for her action, she was reported to her superior by my sister and brother-in-law for failure to administer the meds they gave her to give to my Dad. She will probably never get to work in the medical field again. My Dad has since passed away. Only my Mom remains in that house. Both of my sisters have blocked all communication from me to them. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to see my Mom anymore at all or be allowed to talk to her on the phone. I don’t know if the Trust has been being mismanaged nor can I find out without hiring an attorney which I can not afford and could be construed as an attack on the Trust according to how it is written and, frankly, what would be the point? It’s too late to save what I cared about most, my Mom and Dad. My point is that even the wisest and most business savvy people like my parents can make mistakes. Living Trusts are only as good as the people you put in charge of them and the same goes for Health Care Powers of Attorney.
reply to this commentYour Message@Robin:
Robin, it is difficult to watch how some things play out in life.
You sound like you have a realistic grasp on the situation and have done all you can do without doing any harm. There are some legal aid societies that offer free legal help. You might talk to someone like that, but again, such options have to be weighed to determine whether they do more harm than good.
reply to this commentRobin,
reply to this commentWhat a difficult situation. My heart goes out to your and your family. You make a truly excellent point that not only should the people appointed as successor trustees and attorneys in fact be trustworthy but that some types of safeguards or double checks need to be put in place as well. Sadly when money is involved, things can change inside a family.
What can be done about obvious financial elder abuse? There is a situation where the youngest son is living off the retirement income of his mother placing the entire burden of her care on her husband (not his father). When it is so blatant, what can be done about it?
reply to this commentThe mother can choose to spend her money anyway she wants including giving it all to her son. I agree that it’s not fair to her husband but that is really a matter between husband and wife. This is all said assuming that the mother is competent. If the husband has heirs of his own, for example children from a previous marriage, they should speak to him about his estate plan. Again it’s his money to spend as he likes, if he is competent and chooses to spend all his assets on his wife and himself, that is his choice. Financial elder abuse occurs when financial resources are taken away from a senior by fraud or coercion or from a senior who is not competent to make financial decisions. Making poor choices like supporting an adult child at the risk of the senior’s own financial well being is just that…a bad choice.
reply to this commentIf you feel the mother or father is being bullied or persuaded in some way to agree to this arrangement or is not competent to be making financial decisions then you can report it to Adult Protective Services or police in their town.
My older sister coerced my mother into giving her $675,000. which she said she owed her. The truth is my sister has been living off of my mother for 30 years and she owes my mother over 2 million dollars but because she was not competent she gave my sister the money tax free! Now my mother is broke because my sister took the money she was supposed to live on and my mother is being evicted from the facilitiy where I just paid $145,000 of my own money to pay off her condo.!! My sister says the money is gone and she doesn’t have it but she wontt shoe me her bank records to prove it and I know she is hoarding it so she can live off it after my mother dies. My sister is bleeding me dry of my own money and I didn’t even get anything from my mothers estate becuase my sister spent it all and then is lying about the $675,000 she stole. What can I do to resolve this ?
reply to this commentI’m so sorry for your situation. I would recommend that you retain an elder law attorney, NAELA http://www.naela.com/ National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys is a great resource for finding an expert. What has happened to your mother is a crime. Let your attorney guide you through the right next steps to report it and take legal action.
reply to this commentYour Message@Janice Wallace:
reply to this commentThank you for your advice, I am living in Utah and my mother and sister are in Illinois. Is there an agency I can report this tto in Illinois? I would like to have the state investigate the situation if possible so that it is out of my hands and I don’t have to deal with my sister and her threats and phonecalls,
Here is a link to the Illinois state website for information about reporting elder abuse. http://www.state.il.us/aging/1abuselegal/abuse_reporting.htm
You are able to report the situation and your identity will be kept confidential or you can report it anonymously.
Each state website has a section for seniors or aging. A great place to find all sorts of information about help for seniors even if you as the adult child live in another state.
reply to this commentEven though I’m Power of Attorney, I’ve had to sit by and watch my brother steal about $30K from my mother (now in hospice) during the last few years. He lives with her which is to his advantage. I’ve conducted much research on my brother, discovering such things as court judgments against him and he has an alias (he’s driving on a suspended license, so got a new one under the alias). It’s a complicated matter, but the bottom line is I can do nothing unless he’s incarcerated (or the police get involved on their own). As long as he’s in the house, any action I take will have a negative affect on my mother (I intervened once and it was a a disaster). At this point she’s almost broke, so not really worth the aggravation. It just burns me that he’s getting away with several crimes and after she dies, he gets the house. There needs to be a way to anonymously report the abuse. I have plenty of evidence.
reply to this commentMom has given and keeps giving money to my brother whom she lives with. It is a physically and mentally abusive situation which I need to remove her from but there is no money. I’ve been told a power of attorney will protect her social security check but am afraid this will only make him more angry. Isn’t there a “safehouse” for elders and courts to force the sale of my brother’s property so she can get back the over $100,000 plus interest he owes her? She feels he is suicidal so keeps giving him her money. It’s not fair! I am afraid he is going to hurt her but she keeps protecting him. Isn’t this elder abuse?
reply to this commentYour Message
reply to this commentAlee, I would seek the advise of an eldercare lawyer or geriatric care manager immediately.
Your Message@Shay Grazen:
reply to this commentThis happened in our family. I am a daugher-in-law and found it out by accident and alerted the family of what I had found out. The amount ended up over $500,000. The family decided to go thru a lawyer rather than the prosecuting attorney. It is more expensive but keeps the bad person out of prison. Never went to court. Arbitration settled it all. Judge was fantastic. The bad daughter has not changed and the family wishes they had gone thru the prosecuting attorney. The family was able to get the money back which the bad daughter had invested in her name and names of friends. We were very lucky. She did not hide things well enough. You must deal with this either thru the prosecuting attorney or thru a lawyer. How can you sanction stealing?
Allie,
reply to this commentThanks for your passionate note and for adding a note of hope to this discussion. It’s not easy or pleasant to confront elder abuse especially when it’s committed by a member of the family. More families need to take action through legal means to stop family members from being ripped off.
The State of Arizona is financially abusing my mother!
It goes like this; Three years prior to my moving in to help her, she lost her driving privileges. Ok, so I get the house in order, but she had obvious dementia problems. She wouldn’t (couldn’t) give me financial control and everything was a mess. Utility reconnect fees and monthly service interruptions were constant. She could not care for her self.
I had her evaluated and expected the state to honor the Living Will which makes me successor Trustee if she is incompetent. I have no siblings to contend with and I am single. I have no debts and money in the bank. My only intention is to manage my mother’s assets and care for her with dignity and respect in the most cost effective manor. She has no long term insurance.
So the State required she be assigned a lawyer that she has to pay for and the case goes to Probate Court. Right from the start her lawyer acts like an advocate for the state and takes an adversarial position with me. Mother doesn’t understand who he is and doesn’t understand he is costing her money. …What a shame. I was appointed Guardian and Conservator, but he’s been trying to get control or something and using my mother’s money to do it with. He’s a real jerk. As if that’s not enough, the commissioner then has her lawyer hire a additional lawyer (Guardian ad litem). The second lawyer costs even more and is twice as aggressive. Now the state has a tag team lawyers working to besmirch me at $650 an hour. The court is crazy with power. I thought the purpose of a trust was to keep thing out of court.
There was other stuff they tried to do and backed down on, but not before upsetting the household. Is this Arizona’s way or is everyone else having problems like this too?
What gets me is no one wants to address the Trust and this is in a Probate Court. The Trust has provisions for incompetence. Mother and I have always been close, and she said she never wants to go to a convalescent home. I am fine with that even if it’s going to take a lot of work. WE just want the court to leave us alone.
I thought I was doing the right thing by going to the court, but it seems they are a group of self appointing vultures. I have done nothing wrong, and have good records for everything. What I believe they are doing is Front-Running the heirs to pile on as much litigation debt as they can before she dies. Then they can force the sale of the home or put liens on it.
I have been paid nothing. In fact, I have approximately $17,000 into repairs for her home. I have been paying my own living expenses and providing all transportation at expense. I have 4 years of lost employment opportunity now and my own health is suffering
reply to this commentYour Message@Jeff:
Have you spoken to a reputable geriatric care manager or eldercare attorney? It could be an option for you.
reply to this commentJeff,
reply to this commentWhat a mess! My heart goes out to you and your mother. It sounds like in this whole mess that you are the one who is not represented. It’s very unfortunate that your mother has gone through conservatorship proceedings when she had already made arrangements by appointing you as her successor trustee in her living trust. I agree with the previous post that you need some expert advice even though the last thing you probably want to do is speak with another elderlaw attorney. Here’s a link to the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys as a way to find a reputable and skilled advocate to help you. http://www.naela.org
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