Friday, August 23, 2013
Life is Good
Monday, February 18, 2013
Elder Financial Abuse (Sign this White House Petition!)
American Senior Citizens are our fastest growing
demographic. They are also the group of Americans who hold the vast majority of
the wealth in our country. Many of them are also very vulnerable.
One in ten
Senior Citizens in the country experiences elder abuse every year.
Huffington
Post reported that financial abuse robbed almost $3 billion from elder
Americans just last year. Who are these elder Americans? They are old soldiers
who gave years of their lives to protect our country. They are the humble and brave
mothers who cared for their families while their husbands were at war. They are
our parents’ teachers. They are the carpenters who built our grandparents’
homes. They are our spiritual leaders… retired fire fighters… businessmen…
nurses… police officers… librarians. They are the thrifty people who remember
the great depression. They are the people who marched with Martin Luther King,
Jr. They are the ones who wept at his assassination. They are the same ones who
wept at John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and the wondering eyes who watched in
awe as men walked on the moon. They are my grandmother who never answered the
door without heels on. They are gentlemen like my grandfather who never walked
outside without wearing a tie and hat. They are our national treasures. However,
they are also the people who are most likely to be intimidated by someone in
their family and lose their hard-earned financial legacies; 78% of elder
financial exploitation cases are perpetuated by senior citizens’ relatives.
One
of the first people who recognize this abuse is often a bank teller who sees
money patterns changing and funds disappearing from an elder’s account. They
are the call center representative who fields a call from a sobbing grandmother
who does not know where her money went, and she does not even remember calling
in and speaking with someone on the phone because she is in the early stages of
dementia. What can these tellers and service representatives do? There are a
few states with robust state programs that require financial institutions to
contact local social services (See Maryland State’s Project SAFE: http://www.aging.maryland.gov/programs.html);
those few amazing state laws give financial institutions safe harbor from
Federal privacy laws with regard to reporting elder financial exploitation. However,
most states do not have this. In fact, most financial institutions in this
country have their hands tied with regard to Elder Financial Exploitation. They cannot do
much because of federal privacy laws. There are a couple avenues built into the
Bank Secrecy Act, but none is robust enough really to protect our senior
citizens. Not when their physical safety, their financial legacies, are on the
line.
All it takes is a few wires, a password, some intimidation, and someone
can rob a vulnerable senior citizen of everything they have… leaving them with
no money for their mortgage, their groceries, their electricity, anything. The
results can be devastating.
We the people demand a Federal law be enacted that
gives safe harbor to financial institutions who report elder financial
exploitation and any kind of elder abuse directly to local law enforcement and
local social services. We the people demand a Federal law be enacted demanding
that elder abuse of any kind be reported to local law enforcement and social
services within one week of a financial institution suspecting abuse. We the
people demand that our government protect these national treasures… our Senior
Citizens. Please sign this White House Petition: http://wh.gov/vl3v
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)