Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Guidelines For Avoiding Elder Fraud

By Diane Anderson


Frauds have been common in different areas and have gone unreported for quite a long time as well. Caregivers and family members to the affected seniors stand in the first line of defense against such instances. They have a role in protecting their seniors to ensure that they enjoy their financial freedom. Here are a few practical measures on how to avoid elder fraud that one should take note.

Learn different aspects related to scams. You cannot deal with something that you are not aware of. There are various opportunities that fraudsters can use to take advantage of a senior. For instance, they would scam the senior in an insurance scam, real estate scam, lottery scam, and a health scam.

Beware of everything happening to a senior. You have to be careful with every transaction that the elder makes. Therefore, you should advise the elder to remain open with any deal about to make with you. They should provide information about the financial transaction, bills, and financial emails. Providing such information will help you determine if the consideration about to make is a scam or not.

Consider how you can recognize an elder scam. Most seniors fail to talk about their scam situation and end up suffering in silence. It is best that you look for various measures you can acknowledge if they are in a fraudulent case despite their silence. The best way to recognize this is by their change of behavior especially when it comes to financial matters. These include a delay in payment of bills, change in banking habits and unusual signatures.

Assume their role in financial responsibility. Elders can end up failing to consider their economic positions as they grow old. Their relatives should assume these roles by taking vital documents related to the roles that they have. Some of these documents include the attorney agreement, HIPAA release forms, their wills, and the healthcare proxy.

Verify everything with a trusted expert. The senior should have a trusted individual that one should consult before sharing vital financial information with a stranger. The person might be an attorney or a close individual who is trustworthy. Some seniors might be against such a decision, but it is always necessary to remind them that you intend to protect them rather than control their actions.

Make sure that information about the senior is not public. Most scammers get information about their target senior from a public information avenue. You have to do away with such information if it is unreliable in such channels. The most notorious source of information to deal is the source that telemarketers use to reach out to their target clients.

Always get information about such a situation at all times. There are new and complex scamming techniques used every day. It is necessary to acquaint with these techniques to be in a position to avoid them. The internet has quite a lot of sources that one can rely on. Besides that, you can get precise information from agencies involved in this kind of cases.




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