In late June, the American Bankers Association and AARP announced a two-year partnership to study and help prevent the financial exploitation of elder Americans. Locally, financial institutions are using employee training and customer education to try to curb the scamming of elders.

Liberty Lake-based Spokane Teachers Credit Union, for example, uses its  fraud prevention training programs to address financial exploitation of seniors. Jim Fuher, fraud prevention manager for STCU, says that the credit union’s staff is trained to watch elder member’s patterns of behavior for suspicious changes. 

“We look for things like a regular member who comes in once or twice a week and takes out $100, then all of a sudden comes in and does a $4,000 withdrawal,” Fuher says. 

STCU employees also take notice of who’s accompanying an older member and keep an eye out for any signs of coercion. 

“We’re making sure they’re able to do what they want to do and aren’t being forced into any transactions,” Fuher says. 

If an employee suspects a member may be the victim of a scam or exploitation, the credit union has a very straightforward procedure, he says. 

“If they have any doubt, any suspicions, the employee reports not only to their supervisor but to the fraud prevention department as well, and then we can give it an extra set of eyes,” he says. “In extreme cases, we have done police reports or gotten in contact with adult protective services to get (the member) the additional help they need.”

According to the 2011 Elder Financial Abuse Study, conducted by the Mature Market Institute division of New York City-based insurance company MetLife Inc., elder Americans lose an estimated $2.9 billion a year to fraud. These days, Fuher says, elder consumers are starting to get savvier to scams. However, scammers are getting savvier too, and with current technology trends, they have better access to targets. 

“People are getting more educated about it, but the scam attempts are actually increasing,” Fuher says. “It was just the phone, and now it’s the phone, email, and text message.”

He says the credit union also tries to educate its members, not just employees, on how to spot scams. 

“We have anti-fraud and anti-scam advertisements on our TV screens inside of the branch that are rolling through while members are waiting in line,” Fuher says. The credit union also offers a fraud and identity protection workshop to its members. 

The financial exploitation of seniors isn’t something the bank deals with on a daily basis, for now, he says.  

“As the number of seniors increases, so does the number of those cases,” he says. “It’s not something we see on a daily basis, but it’s something we work with.” 

There are several main types of scams that are targeted at the elderly, Fuher says. One, called the grandpa or grandma scam, involves a fraudster calling an elderly person claiming to be a relative and asking for money, he says. 

“There’s also the lottery scam; that one never goes away,” he says. 

In a lottery scam, the perpetrator calls a target and claims they’ve won the lottery and need to send in money in order to collect the winnings. 

A more basic scam, Fuher says, is when a fraudster calls a target and tells them their debit or credit card has been blocked and the person must verify their account information to unblock it.  

“The worst one of those is, ‘Well, can you verify the 16 digits of your card over the phone,’ trying to get the member to give out their whole debit or credit card information, along with the code on the back,” he says. 

Oftentimes scams can be seasonal, Fuher says, such as during tax season. In April the credit union sees people calling members, claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service or Medicare and asking for personal or account information. 

Fuher says one of the most hostile scams is the false-collections trick, which involves a scammer trying to claim a nonexistent debt from a member. 

“They’re very aggressive on the phone, especially with the seniors,” he says. “They’re telling them, ‘You’ve got an outstanding debt,’ … a hospital bill, a medical bill … ‘and if you don’t pay it over the phone right now, we’re going to call the cops on you.’ Again, they’re trying to get the card number over the phone.”

However, there’s one con that sits in a category all by itself, Fuher says: the sweetheart scam. 

“They use the online dating sites, and I’m not talking about the free ones,” he says. “I mean the ones you have to pay membership fees for, where bad guys are looking to make connections. And we’ve seen this, especially in the 50-to- 65 age range, where they will befriend seniors online, gain their trust, and then exploit them to send money or try to use them to negotiate counterfeit checks and then send them back the funds, using them as a money mule.”

Fuher says that oftentimes in a sweetheart scam, the victim becomes emotionally engaged with the scammer, and may have trouble coming to terms with the fraud. 

Jan Shelby, assistant vice president and relationship manager for Spokane-based Washington Trust Bank, says that seniors also can be vulnerable to fraud through their estates, in addition to scams involving a checking or savings account.

The bank’s wealth management department helps prevent fraud and exploitation by acting as a trustee for an elderly client’s estate, Shelby says, once the client has the proper planning documents in place. 

“We encourage them to address those issues early on, so there is a line of authority in case an accident, disability, or stroke happens, so there is someone prepared to step in and act for them,” she says. 

The bank generally looks for an elderly client to have what’s known as a revocable living trust, Shelby says. 

“Within that kind of estate planning structure, it will list who the trustee and successor trustee is,” she says. “We encourage them to name everyone in that trust so it’s a seamless line of authority.”

Once an estate account is set up, the bank can offer different services to the elderly client to help prevent fraud or exploitation, including monitoring and validating any wire transfers in and out of the account, Shelby says. 

“We’re very cautious when we get requests for money going out of any of our accounts, whether they’re senior or disabled, or whatever stage of life,” she says. “If we’re getting requests, we’re going to validate them.”

Shelby says that if the department receives a wire transfer or automated clearinghouse request via an electronic source, someone calls the client to speak with them personally and ensure the request is legitimate. 

“We always validate all of that information, and we request that the client verify to us exactly where it’s going and what account it’s being deposited into,” she says. “If we can’t get ahold of them to validate in some way, then we have to wait until we have verification. Or, if there’s a power of attorney (situation), we call that person.”

Washington Trust also can help elderly clients with day-to-day financial management, Shelby says. This helps prevent any scammers from contacting the elder about unpaid bills or otherwise trying to exploit information.

“Once they do have their estate planning documents in place … then when we’re named to help them, sometimes as a trustee or successor trustee, we can help them during life,” she says.  “We can pay their bills for them so they’re current and timely, and so they don’t have issues with expenses not being paid and creditors coming after them. We can also make sure their insurances, home and vehicle, are in place.”

Shelby says, “Even if they go into care facilities, they may still have items that need insurance. For those who are still in their homes but need help, we can help them by referring them to licensed, bonded, and insured home health care organizations or social workers.”

Having the bank as a trustee also can help the families of elders, she says.

“We’re all qualified officers with judiciary responsibilities, so their accounts will be handled properly,” Shelby says. “It relieves the burden on the family, who may not have a financial background … that really helps protect their finances from abuse or fraud.”