Financial exploitation of elderly on the rise

An 86-year old Seattle man meets a younger woman in a
grocery store. Within months, they’re married and she’s
drained him of $150,000. A man in his 60s, whose wife just
died, meets a woman in a bar. Within a year-and-a-half,
the scammer has taken him for everything; house, car, and
savings.

Both victims had mild cognitive impairment, but were
living independently. Both men were devastated. The older
man has been in assisted living ever since.

Elder abuse is on the rise even as vast numbers of such
crimes go un-reported. It’s estimated that one in ten
older adults suffer from some form of abuse. Older
Americans hold a lion’s share of the wealth in this
country and financial exploitation of the elderly costs
them billions of dollars a year.

Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist says old people
are seen as easy marks. “Elders tend to be from a more
trusting generation, they’re not as attuned to modern
scams, they can be isolated and thereby victimized.”

The people who prey on the elderly are often outside
caregivers who get hold of financial information,
sometimes freeloaders, relatives, even strangers who make
cold calls to gain critical information over the
telephone, said Lindquist.

Page Ulrey leads a special unit trying cases of elder
abuse in the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office.
“The people who, in my experience, are the most common
victims of these crimes are people who are lonely, your
guard comes down, and you end up trusting people who you
might not have trusted.”

Ulrey just prosecuted a woman in her 40s who befriended an
older man, whose wife had died in a car wreck. The woman
took him home and then eventually moved him into her house
and took over his finances.

“He had gotten quite a bit of money as a result of his
wife’s death and she basically drained him of everything
he had within a span of about a year and a half, claimed
Ulrey.”

She won convictions on 14 counts of first degree theft.

Besides the impact on the victims, it’s estimated the
financial exploitation of the elderly costs Americans many
billions of dollars a year in increased costs to Medicare
and Medicaid.

Marie-Therese Connolly, an author, researcher and elder
advocate says elder abuse is “stubborningly stuck in our
collective blind spot.” The issue has not gotten the
attention of comparable issues, such as domestic violence
and child abuse.

Or the funding. Elder abuse related spending at the
federal level came in just short of $12 million in 2009,
compared to $649 million for violence against women.

“We don’t have the same level of outrage and I guess I
keep coming back to ageism and denial that it’s hard for
us to conceive of these things hapening,” said Connolly.

Sometimes it takes a dramatic event or a famous person to
shine a light on an underexposed problem. Connolly says
she thought that was happening when actor Mickey Rooney
admitted he’d been victimized by his wife’s stepson.
Rooney appeared before Congress in March last year.

“I felt trapped, scared. Even when I tried to speak up I
was told to ‘shut up’,” Rooney testified.

Connolly says Rooney’s comments sparked conversation about
elder abuse for a few days, but it has not been lasting.
Perhaps a critical mass of older Americans will bring the
issue to the fore.

“We know that there are over 5 million victims every year,
already and it’s going to go up as 77 million baby boomers
reach old age,” said Connolly. Including the first baby
boomers who turned 65 last year.

The problem is likely much larger than we know. Research
on crimes against the elderly is scant but Connolly says a
recent study found that for every case of financial
exploitation, another 44 go unreported.