Financial Fraud Among The Elderly

The number of people over the age of 65 is steadily increasing in the United States. It is imperative that social workers who work with the elderly have resources to identify elders who may be particularly vulnerable to fraud and to have tools to assess suspected victims of fraud while helping the elder to maintain their integrity and autonomy. Having tools to assess these situations could provide relevant information and allow targeted intervention programs to be developed with the goal of decreasing incidents of financial fraud among the elderly. This information and these resources could also serve to protect elders and decrease the likelihood of fraud, thus hopefully preventing an accelerated emotional and physical decline in the elderly

).Additionally, Rabiner points out the embarrassment and fear that an elder may feel after being victimized. According to Cohen (2006), “people over sixty accounted for three-quarters of those defrauded more than $5,000” (p. XX). And that “seniors represent a disproportionate percentage of the victims of consumer fraud” (Cohen, 2006) These seniors in this study were women, had some cognitive impairment, and were also socially isolated. If an older person is losing their “ability to handle their financial affairs” (Rabiner, 2004), they may be befriended by a new person and may place their finances “in the hands of a stranger whom he/she feels is trustworthy” (Rabiner, 2004, p. XX). Rabiner reports a study by Marson who points out that there is “a specific relationship between executive control functioning and the ability to manage one’s finances” (Rabiner, 2004). Executive functioning refers to the higher planning ability takes place in the brain, generally within the frontal cortex. The study by Davies et al. reported that of the 35 cases of abuse they studied, 20 of the victims suffered from dementia. In fact, many researchers and writers suggest “differentiating financial exploitation from legitimate

Sanchez (year) states that many of the screening indicators for research are Eurocentric and “rooted in assumptions reflective of a white, middle-class perspective and do not take into account cultural differences” (Sanchez, year, p. 51) Many people of non-European cultures have experienced a more limited opportunity to access resources than many euro-Americans (Sanchez, year). Within the Mexican American culture, for example, many of the family interactions that are acceptable within that community may appear to be abusive if using the standard research criteria (Sanchez, year). Per Beach et al. (year), the prevalence rate for African Americans over the age of 60 experiencing financial exploitation was significantly higher than for younger non-African Americans. (p. 744) The rate among African Americans was four times that than for non-African Americans in overall financial exploitations. For African Americans, there was a greater risk for financial exploitation for those who lived with family members who were not a spouse or child. Living with adult children did not raise the risk for African American elders. This financial abuse was reported to have been done not by family, but by strangers (Beach,