With cases of elder financial fraud on the rise, Edward D. Jones & Co., one of the nation’s leading suppliers of financial services for individual investors, sent 85 employee volunteers to Washington, D.C., last month to meet with legislators to discuss how this and other key issues will affect its clients. 

Mary Charbonneau, a senior branch office administrator with an Edward Jones office located on the first floor of the Rock Pointe I Building at 1212 N. Washington, in the Rock Pointe Corporate Center complex, was among those volunteers. 

She says the group, which the company calls its grassroots task force, started in 1985 and is one of the only groups of its kind. 

“The grassroots task force is a bipartisan, volunteer group, consisting of two representatives from each state,” she says. “We visit Washington, D.C., once a year to meet with state representatives and other officials to discuss issues of importance to our clients.”  

She says the task force is a mix of employees, including branch office administrators, financial advisers, and home office associates. 

“Volunteers usually serve a three-year term, but I was asked to serve another term following my first, so I’m on my last year of a six-year term now,” she says.

Charbonneau says the company’s government and regulatory relations department, along with leaders from its executive committee, choose which issues to focus on each year, based on the group’s mission to represent individual investors’ concerns.

This was the group’s 32nd visit to the capital, and its two focus issues were retirement incentives and a bill known as the Senior $afe Act, which would protect senior investors from financial exploitation.

Charbonneau says the Senior $afe Act is a bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Both senators serve on the Senate aging committee and have been supporting the bill as it moves through the legislative process. 

She says a version of the bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last July, and is expected to go before the Senate soon. 

Charbonneau says the Senior $afe Act would enable financial institutions to train staff to watch for signs of fraud and report it to authorities, something they’re currently unable to do because of confidentiality laws.

“Of the current fraud victims, only one in four even report it to authorities, so it may be an even bigger problem than we realize,” she says.

Charbonneau says Edward Jones currently has more branch offices than any other financial services provider in the country, with nearly 12,000 offices spread across all 50 states and occupied by 14,000 financial advisers. 

“We have 31 offices here in Spokane. Of those, our Rock Pointe office was the first to open, 33 years ago in 1984,” she says. “There are 557 offices in the state of Washington overall.”

She says Edward Jones serves about 7 million customers nationwide, one third of whom are over the age of 65. 

“Financial scams are an epidemic in the senior population, and even the savviest seniors may fall prey to exploitation. Our branch teams know their clients well and form the first line of defense in helping prevent financial abuse,” she says.

She says currently, if a client with memory issues is being defrauded and has no competent family member designated to manage their affairs, it’s difficult to help them. 

“Allowing financial institutions and insurance companies to report suspicious financial activities to the appropriate authorities will help to further protect seniors and preserve their funds,” she says. “Many of our representatives see the value in this legislation, and we have enough support that we’re hopeful it will be made into law by the end of this year.”

Originally from Seattle, Charbonneau holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Washington, as well as a secondary degree in in finance from Gonzaga University. 

She has worked with Edward Jones for 22 years, starting with a position in one of the firm’s Seattle offices, as well as several other locations, before settling in Spokane in 1999.

 “My husband grew up here, and I’ve just always felt it’s a beautiful area with a very open, welcoming community,” she says. 

 Charbonneau says as a senior branch office administrator, her current role doesn’t involve making advisory recommendations to clients. Rather, she assists other office advisers and focuses on daily client interactions and relationships. 

“Most of the clients I work with one on one now are older, and that ties into my work with the grassroots task force,” she says. “Because I work with seniors every day, I have a unique window of insight into their needs.”

She says she has a personal passion for the Senior $afe Act, having worked with clients affected by Alzheimer’s and other memory issues. 

“They come from a generation that’s used to trust,” she says. “They’re particularly susceptible to stories that play on emotion and don’t always think to ask questions until later.” 

She says many seniors with memory issues are embarrassed to learn they’ve been taken advantage of, which makes talking about it even harder. 

 “As financial advisers, we’ve developed relationships with our clients, and we want them to know they can come to us with questions when something doesn’t feel right,” she says. 

Although the issue of elder financial fraud hasn’t gotten much attention yet either nationally or locally, Charbonneau says it has become more prevalent with the rise of new technology. 

“Technology is a wonderful tool, but a lot of fraudsters use it to retain a sense of anonymity,” she says. “You have seniors who want to learn to use devices to engage with family and sharpen their minds, but at the same time it can open the door to unscrupulous people.”

Although most of the task force’s efforts were focused on the Senior $afe Act this year, Charbonneau says Edward Jones also is looking to do more to protect the investments of younger clients who are starting to save for retirement.

“Edward Jones strongly supports efforts to reevaluate our tax code to promote economic growth, simplification, certainty, and fairness,” she says. “We believe measures that incent savings and investment are imperative to helping future generations achieve and maintain financial security.”

She says the week of the group’s visit to Washington, D.C., was the same week in which President Trump released his one-page summary of what is expected to be included in upcoming income tax reforms. 

“There wasn’t much to discuss yet,” she says. “But one of the things we’re watching closely for is whether incentives for small business owners to offer employees retirement plans are kept.” 

Charbonneau says although a majority of U.S. workers are employed by small businesses, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January 2017 that at companies with fewer than 50 employees, not even half of those employees have access to a retirement plan.

“Having an employer-sponsored retirement plan is the most important factor in determining whether low and middle-income American workers accumulate meaningful savings for retirement,” she says. “That is why Edward Jones supports the need to incent more small employers to adopt a plan.”

Following the task force’s visit with legislators, Charbonneau says the company is optimistic that small business owner incentives will be kept, and the Senior $afe Act will be passed. 

“Our visit was well received, particularly regarding the Senior $afe Act,” she says. “Our next step will be to keep the legislators we spoke with updated as these issues continue to move through the legislative process.”

She says being a volunteer is time consuming, but well worth the effort. 

“It’s a very interesting and active role,” she says. “Volunteers are chosen specifically to represent different perspectives, but also as people who have insight into the current issues we’re looking to bring attention to.”

She says locally, Edward Jones sponsors the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s, and also has been working to distribute educational materials throughout the community to further awareness of elder financial fraud. 

“Last year, Edward Jones became a sponsor for the Alzheimer’s Association, and our work with them parallels strongly with our support of the Senior $afe Act,” she says. “We have about 10,000 Americans turning 65 each year, and of those one in eight are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Of those diagnosed one in four are victims of financial fraud, so they’re almost twice as likely to be defrauded as those without the disease.”

Charbonneau says local Alzheimer’s Association representatives have said the Senior $afe Act could also help people outside the financial industry become more aware of elder fraud.

One related piece of legislation that was passed here in Washington on November’s ballot was Initiative 1501, a measure designed to increase criminal penalties for perpetrators of identity theft and consumer fraud who target seniors and vulnerable individuals.

Charbonneau says she sees such efforts as an encouraging reminder that many people care about the wellbeing of seniors in their communities. 

“I believe our community has always wanted to help protect seniors from financial fraud, but the resources to do so must be made available,” she says.