Experts offer tips for catching fraud against elderly people
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LANSING - Financial fraud against older adults has become a serious and growing concern in Michigan, according to experts, and the crimes can result in the loss of life savings, retirement funds, homes and financial independence.
Asked how often financial fraud happens to elders, Dustin Foster, a professor at Cooley Law School, said, "I typically tell my students that it is approximately one in 10, and that more than half of the time the perpetrator is a family member."
Foster is the executive director of the school's Sixty Plus Elderlaw Clinic.
Elder abuse, according to the Attorney General's Office, happens when someone hurts, ignores or takes advantage of an older adult.
According to the office, that can include stealing money or valuables, or dehumanizing them. Common signs of financial abuse include unpaid bills, missing money and strange purchases.
Foster said, "What I tell my students to look for are the following: unusual activity with the financial accounts, drastic changes with estate planning documents, especially if it is the removal of a trusted family member."
Other indicators of trouble are adding agents to a durable power of attorney, adding new joint owners to accounts or if the victim has trouble meeting basic needs, he said..
The Attorney General's Office said abuse occurs often at the hands of trusted family, friends, neighbors and caregivers.That can occur in the victim's home, another person's home or in licensed settings such as homes for the aged and nursing homes.
Grabel and Associates, a Michigan law firm, published an article on its website detailing the most common types of financial fraud committed against elders.
It said fraud by strangers can include repair or product scams, uncollected debt scams, prizes and sweepstakes, investment scams and health or life insurance scams.
Scams by family and friends are a growing concern, the firm said, and can include misusing ATM or credit cards, denying medical services, forcing or manipulating a victim to hand over property or other resources, and signing or cashing checks without permission.
The Attorney General's Office recently publicized two cases of elderly financial abuse on its website.
The first, announced on Oct. 8, details how Phillip Lee Sprague, 62, of Farwell, pleaded no contest to three counts of embezzlement from a vulnerable adult.
Sprague was charged with stealing $400,000 from an 82-year-old man who had just sustained a major brain injury. He was charged with illegally obtaining $400,000 in assets from the victim, with $300,000 stemming from changes he made in a will.
The second case, announced on Oct. 30, said Donovan Leonard, 34, of Cedar, faces felony charges of embezzlement, forgery, failure to file taxes and uttering and publishing.
Leonard allegedly obtained a power of attorney from an elderly man suffering from dementia, whom he had been close with for many years, then began selling the victim's assets and withdrawing more than $100,000 from his bank account.
In both cases, the fraud was committed by someone whom the victims trusted, the office said.
Foster said reasons older people might not report fraud include "embarrassment, fear of being alone, fear of no longer receiving assistance, fear of being removed from your home, fear of being stripped of some level of independence and fear of the legal system."