January 23, 2025 • 9 mins
Roughly 6 million Americans suffer from one or more dementia symptoms. 10% of folks
over 85 have dementia. This is expected to rise to 14 million people by 2050.
Profile of Potential Target:.
1. Dementia symptoms
2. Easily influenced by others
3. Lives alone (isolated)
4. Lonely
5. Recent loss of family member
Forms of Abuse:
1. Changing mailing address on financial reports/statements
2. Large withdrawals
3. Unpaid bills
4. Substandard care
5. Perpetrator spends too much time with victim
6. Perpetrator shows too much interest in money matters
7. Missing belongings
8. Limiting visitation by family and friends
9. Investing in sketchy business ventures
10.Late life marriages
Duty to Report:
1. Last year, Ohio passed a new law that creates a duty for lawyers, doctors, social
workers and mental health professionals to report suspected abuse
2. Reports are investigated by Ohio Adult Protective Services (1-855-OHIO-APS)
3. Reports are kept anonymous
over 85 have dementia. This is expected to rise to 14 million people by 2050.
Profile of Potential Target:.
1. Dementia symptoms
2. Easily influenced by others
3. Lives alone (isolated)
4. Lonely
5. Recent loss of family member
Forms of Abuse:
- 1. Forging checks or forcing victim to sign checks
- 2. Forcing victim to sign a deed, will, trust or POA
- 3. Stealing property
- 4. Promising lifelong care in exchange for money
- 5. Using property without payment or permission
- 6. Phone scams
- 7. Mail scams
- 8. Internet scams
- 9. Self neglect
1. Changing mailing address on financial reports/statements
2. Large withdrawals
3. Unpaid bills
4. Substandard care
5. Perpetrator spends too much time with victim
6. Perpetrator shows too much interest in money matters
7. Missing belongings
8. Limiting visitation by family and friends
9. Investing in sketchy business ventures
10.Late life marriages
Duty to Report:
1. Last year, Ohio passed a new law that creates a duty for lawyers, doctors, social
workers and mental health professionals to report suspected abuse
2. Reports are investigated by Ohio Adult Protective Services (1-855-OHIO-APS)
3. Reports are kept anonymous
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, you're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth
Financial Amami Wagner along with Bob Sponseller. I think we've
all heard the horror stories in the news and other
places and it just kind of makes you sick a
little nauseous in your stomach when you hear about an
elderly person who has been taking advantage of and abused
(00:23):
in any way. And oftentimes the way that those headlines
play out is it can even be someone close to them.
And so if you've kind of seen or heard any
of those stories and you worry about someone your parents,
your aunt, your uncle, whoever that is, stick with us here.
(00:43):
We are joined tonight by Mark Reckman. He is our
state planning expert from the law firm of Wood and Lamping,
an expert on all things in elder care. In Mark,
I really want to dive into this financial abuse of
the elderly. What do we need to be looking for here?
What do we need to know to protect our loved ones?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, probably the classic scenario is that is people who
developed dementia, But that's not the only time that you
see financial abuse, but dementia symptoms is an example of that.
And when I say, dementia symptoms, I mean gullibility, I
mean forgetfulness, I mean people who were disorganized, who are
(01:24):
unable to follow through, they can't keep commitments. And these
are symptoms. These are all symptoms. Collectively, they're referred to
as dementia. Some people have some of them, some people
have more of them. Dementia is a collection of symptoms.
It's not a disease. The disease is either Alzheimer's or
Parkinson's or Huntington's or some other neurological condition. And they
(01:48):
manifest themselves by dementia symptoms. And that's a big one.
People who are easily influenced by others, people who are isolated,
living alone, people who are low, people who have a
recent loss of family member. This is the sort of
group of people that are prime potential targets for elder abuse.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Mark, what are the most common forms of elder abuse
that you're seeing in your practice these days?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, they come in a variety of flavors. Forging checks
or forcing a victim to sign checks is something that
we see. So basically that's a type of embezzlement, for
lack of a better term, forcing a victim to sign
a deed to transfer real estate, or to sign a
will to change their beneficiary, or to sign a beneficiary
(02:39):
form on life insurance or accounts at organizations like yours,
at investment companies, people who are tricked into signing trusts
or a power of attorney. Another one is that someone
who is taking advantage of an elderly person will have
them sign a power of attorney, which gives the abuser
(03:00):
the right to transact business on behalf of the victim,
stealing property, promising lifelong care in exchange for money, or
in exchange for immediate payment. I will take care of
you for the rest of your life, but give me
fifty thousand dollars now using property of another person without
(03:21):
payment or permission. As a classical one. By the way,
these things manifest themselves in phone scams, nail scams, internet scams. Now,
classically this group of people are not big Internet users,
but as time marches on, that has gotten to be
a bigger and bigger deal. Another thing we worry about,
(03:41):
which is a very difficult one to pin down, and
that's self neglect because often there's no abuser involved. People
who are neglecting themselves, there's not an active third party.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
All right, Mark, that brings up a question I've been
dying to ask ever since I knew we were going
to do this segment, because I've got several clients now
in their mid to late eighties. We've done all the planning,
we referred them to a great estate planning attorney like yourself.
They've done the power of attorney, They've done everything, and
now the mental state of the client is starting to
(04:18):
change where we're having to trigger actually implementing that power
of attorney authority. I know we have compliance guidelines in
place in our industry, but I'm curious, from the standpoint
of the attorney in the legal profession, what would you
say are the main triggering events where we can say definitively,
(04:39):
we are now moving to that financial power of attorney
to make all decisions in place of the client.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
How does that work in your world? Well, now, some
of these signals are subtle and some of them are blatant.
The subtle ones are people who change their mailing address
for no apparent reason, or they change the place where
their financial statements are being sent. In other words, your
financial planning firms send out reports and statements every month
(05:10):
and somebody customer comes along and changes their mailing address
even though they haven't moved, so those reports are going
to a third party. We look for large withdrawals. A
big one is missing the payment of bills. Bills that
you're regularly paying monthly, you've not had a problem with
in the past, and now there's a series of missing bills. Now,
I'm not talking about an occasional lapse. I was out
(05:33):
of the country last month and I was a day
late making a payment on my credit card, and so
that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people
who are missing two or three or four payments, and
maybe not in a row, but over the course of
several months. Substandard personal care, which comes to dressing, wearing
(05:55):
clean clothes, keeping yourself clean, and your appearance in decent
shape a thing to watch out for. Another one is
the perpetrator or the abuser as we call it, tends
to spend too much time with a victim that's a clue,
or the perpetrator shows too much interest in the money
affairs of the person that they are allegedly helping. Another
(06:17):
key thing is missing belongings. Now I'm not talking about
things that are missing around the house, But I'm talking
about you know, where's your car? Oh? Well, you know,
I took my car. I took it to the shop
and it's being repaired well, but it's been gone for
a month. That kind of thing. We also look for
anybody who tries to limit access to an utterly person
(06:40):
by their family or friends or neighbors. One of the
oldest themes that we see is that abusers tend to
isolate their victims and cut them off from contacts with
family and friends.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You know, Mark, I think about some of these situations
that I have been aware of through the years, and
it's tough because, you know, when you were talking about
you know, maybe the people who are more susceptible to
these kinds of things are lonely. You know, they feel
isolated in themselves. So if someone comes along starts to
show them attention, it's been a while, right since someone
(07:15):
new has been in their lives and is really really
interested in them asking them questions. But as the loved one,
if you start to hear someone's name that you've never
heard before, maybe it's you know, they're in an assisted
living facility and it's someone that just keeps coming around
or whatever. Make sure you're asking questions, because I think
it's oftentimes there's a little kind of bell that we're
(07:37):
hearing in the back of our heads, yet we're not
necessarily acting on it. I think when we don't act
on it, that's when things can go really wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well most certainly that's the case, And so one of
the things to look out for is you've got to
keep communication open with this person. If it's a memory
of your family, that should be easy and natural. If
it's a client that you're working with, that's going to
be a little harder. And of course it's hard for
a professional, for example, to maintain enough contact with the client.
(08:04):
That's not really your role or my role to do.
On the other hand, we're the people. We're the professionals,
the doctors, the financial planners, the lawyers are the people
who will notice these sort of things and it gets
a little awkward. And the best thing, of course, you
can do is to be sure you have contact information
for somebody in the family in your file. And I
suspect that your office, like mine, has a system where
(08:28):
you record contact phone numbers and addresses for key people
when you open an account, so you've got someplace that
you can go with your concerns.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Mark great insights and things for those of us who
maybe have aging parents loved ones to look out for,
to make sure that we're paying attention to. And I think, man,
if you have any thought in your mind that maybe
this could be happening to your loved one, go down
the path right, ask the questions, do the research, follow up.
You'll never regret spending that extra time on it because
(08:59):
on the flip side, right if something does happen, it's
just the worst feeling in the world. So great insights
from Mark Reckman are a state planning expert from the
law firm of Wood and Lamping. You're listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC,
the talk station
Yeah, you're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth
Financial Amami Wagner along with Bob Sponseller. I think we've
all heard the horror stories in the news and other
places and it just kind of makes you sick a
little nauseous in your stomach when you hear about an
elderly person who has been taking advantage of and abused
(00:23):
in any way. And oftentimes the way that those headlines
play out is it can even be someone close to them.
And so if you've kind of seen or heard any
of those stories and you worry about someone your parents,
your aunt, your uncle, whoever that is, stick with us here.
(00:43):
We are joined tonight by Mark Reckman. He is our
state planning expert from the law firm of Wood and Lamping,
an expert on all things in elder care. In Mark,
I really want to dive into this financial abuse of
the elderly. What do we need to be looking for here?
What do we need to know to protect our loved ones?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, probably the classic scenario is that is people who
developed dementia, But that's not the only time that you
see financial abuse, but dementia symptoms is an example of that.
And when I say, dementia symptoms, I mean gullibility, I
mean forgetfulness, I mean people who were disorganized, who are
(01:24):
unable to follow through, they can't keep commitments. And these
are symptoms. These are all symptoms. Collectively, they're referred to
as dementia. Some people have some of them, some people
have more of them. Dementia is a collection of symptoms.
It's not a disease. The disease is either Alzheimer's or
Parkinson's or Huntington's or some other neurological condition. And they
(01:48):
manifest themselves by dementia symptoms. And that's a big one.
People who are easily influenced by others, people who are isolated,
living alone, people who are low, people who have a
recent loss of family member. This is the sort of
group of people that are prime potential targets for elder abuse.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Mark, what are the most common forms of elder abuse
that you're seeing in your practice these days?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, they come in a variety of flavors. Forging checks
or forcing a victim to sign checks is something that
we see. So basically that's a type of embezzlement, for
lack of a better term, forcing a victim to sign
a deed to transfer real estate, or to sign a
will to change their beneficiary, or to sign a beneficiary
(02:39):
form on life insurance or accounts at organizations like yours,
at investment companies, people who are tricked into signing trusts
or a power of attorney. Another one is that someone
who is taking advantage of an elderly person will have
them sign a power of attorney, which gives the abuser
(03:00):
the right to transact business on behalf of the victim,
stealing property, promising lifelong care in exchange for money, or
in exchange for immediate payment. I will take care of
you for the rest of your life, but give me
fifty thousand dollars now using property of another person without
(03:21):
payment or permission. As a classical one. By the way,
these things manifest themselves in phone scams, nail scams, internet scams. Now,
classically this group of people are not big Internet users,
but as time marches on, that has gotten to be
a bigger and bigger deal. Another thing we worry about,
(03:41):
which is a very difficult one to pin down, and
that's self neglect because often there's no abuser involved. People
who are neglecting themselves, there's not an active third party.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
All right, Mark, that brings up a question I've been
dying to ask ever since I knew we were going
to do this segment, because I've got several clients now
in their mid to late eighties. We've done all the planning,
we referred them to a great estate planning attorney like yourself.
They've done the power of attorney, They've done everything, and
now the mental state of the client is starting to
(04:18):
change where we're having to trigger actually implementing that power
of attorney authority. I know we have compliance guidelines in
place in our industry, but I'm curious, from the standpoint
of the attorney in the legal profession, what would you
say are the main triggering events where we can say definitively,
(04:39):
we are now moving to that financial power of attorney
to make all decisions in place of the client.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
How does that work in your world? Well, now, some
of these signals are subtle and some of them are blatant.
The subtle ones are people who change their mailing address
for no apparent reason, or they change the place where
their financial statements are being sent. In other words, your
financial planning firms send out reports and statements every month
(05:10):
and somebody customer comes along and changes their mailing address
even though they haven't moved, so those reports are going
to a third party. We look for large withdrawals. A
big one is missing the payment of bills. Bills that
you're regularly paying monthly, you've not had a problem with
in the past, and now there's a series of missing bills. Now,
I'm not talking about an occasional lapse. I was out
(05:33):
of the country last month and I was a day
late making a payment on my credit card, and so
that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people
who are missing two or three or four payments, and
maybe not in a row, but over the course of
several months. Substandard personal care, which comes to dressing, wearing
(05:55):
clean clothes, keeping yourself clean, and your appearance in decent
shape a thing to watch out for. Another one is
the perpetrator or the abuser as we call it, tends
to spend too much time with a victim that's a clue,
or the perpetrator shows too much interest in the money
affairs of the person that they are allegedly helping. Another
(06:17):
key thing is missing belongings. Now I'm not talking about
things that are missing around the house, But I'm talking
about you know, where's your car? Oh? Well, you know,
I took my car. I took it to the shop
and it's being repaired well, but it's been gone for
a month. That kind of thing. We also look for
anybody who tries to limit access to an utterly person
(06:40):
by their family or friends or neighbors. One of the
oldest themes that we see is that abusers tend to
isolate their victims and cut them off from contacts with
family and friends.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You know, Mark, I think about some of these situations
that I have been aware of through the years, and
it's tough because, you know, when you were talking about
you know, maybe the people who are more susceptible to
these kinds of things are lonely. You know, they feel
isolated in themselves. So if someone comes along starts to
show them attention, it's been a while, right since someone
(07:15):
new has been in their lives and is really really
interested in them asking them questions. But as the loved one,
if you start to hear someone's name that you've never
heard before, maybe it's you know, they're in an assisted
living facility and it's someone that just keeps coming around
or whatever. Make sure you're asking questions, because I think
it's oftentimes there's a little kind of bell that we're
(07:37):
hearing in the back of our heads, yet we're not
necessarily acting on it. I think when we don't act
on it, that's when things can go really wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well most certainly that's the case, And so one of
the things to look out for is you've got to
keep communication open with this person. If it's a memory
of your family, that should be easy and natural. If
it's a client that you're working with, that's going to
be a little harder. And of course it's hard for
a professional, for example, to maintain enough contact with the client.
(08:04):
That's not really your role or my role to do.
On the other hand, we're the people. We're the professionals,
the doctors, the financial planners, the lawyers are the people
who will notice these sort of things and it gets
a little awkward. And the best thing, of course, you
can do is to be sure you have contact information
for somebody in the family in your file. And I
suspect that your office, like mine, has a system where
(08:28):
you record contact phone numbers and addresses for key people
when you open an account, so you've got someplace that
you can go with your concerns.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Mark great insights and things for those of us who
maybe have aging parents loved ones to look out for,
to make sure that we're paying attention to. And I think, man,
if you have any thought in your mind that maybe
this could be happening to your loved one, go down
the path right, ask the questions, do the research, follow up.
You'll never regret spending that extra time on it because
(08:59):
on the flip side, right if something does happen, it's
just the worst feeling in the world. So great insights
from Mark Reckman are a state planning expert from the
law firm of Wood and Lamping. You're listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC,
the talk station
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