Elder Financial Exploitation

Jonathan Foxx, Ph.D., MBA

Chairman

Managing Director

January 6, 2022

Question

Your newsletters and papers on elder abuse really resonate with us. Our bank is located in an area in Florida where there is a high percentage of retired people. We also own a non-bank subsidiary that our retired customers use for various real estate financing needs.

So, we have considerable experience in looking out for potential elder financial abuse. That said, our non-bank subsidiary is branching to other states, and we would like to know more about the mandatory reporting requirements in states.

Our compliance department personnel know you have written a lot about this subject, so we feel you could help us identify some of these states and maybe even some laws that we can consider to include in our policies and procedures.

What states mandate reporting of elder financial abuse? What states have voluntary reporting? Are there a few tips you could give us about monitoring for such abuse? And, are there helpful Best Practices you would suggest?

Answer

Yes. I have written extensively about elder financial exploitation. Go to my article that provides numerous links to my articles and papers on this subject, Elder Financial Exploitation: Prevention and Filing SARs. It seems every time we identify a scam against senior citizens, another one pops up.

Elders are taken advantage of by scam artists, financial advisors, family members, friends, acquaintances, caregivers, home repair contractors, real estate firms, residential mortgage loan originators, credit repair companies, stockbrokers, accountants, lawyers, collection agents, appraisers, fiduciaries, guardians, unscrupulous professionals and business people (or those posing as such), pastors, annuity salespersons, and doctors.

A majority of the states now mandate financial institutions and or persons tied to the financial institution to report suspected financial exploitation against seniors and other vulnerable customers to law enforcement and social service agencies.

Depending upon the state, the applicable law will limit the definition of persons to a subset of persons such as “officers and employees” or cover “any person.”

Here is the list of the states with mandatory reporting requirements.