Crimes of elder financial exploitation damage more than a senior citizen’s bank account.
James Lindsay is a financial exploitation attorney for Legal Aid of West Virginia and a leader in a multi-agency state task force fighting elder financial abuse.
Lindsay addressed the West Virginia Legislature’s interim meeting of the Children and Families Committee Tuesday. He said about half of the state’s 16,000 elder abuse and neglect cases involve financial exploitation.
“Financial exploitation is what we call the biggest ‘silent crime’ in the United States,” Lindsay said. “One study from the Government Accountability Office found about $5.5 million in assets from about 158 incapacitated victims, most of whom were seniors. The estimated cost of financial exploitation in the United States is approximately $3 billion.”
Lindsay listed the usual suspects in elder financial exploitation, including computer hackers, identity thieves, IRS scams, government impostors and impostor businesses. However, he focused his remarks on nearly half of all state and national scam artists, calling them the ‘“unusual suspects.”
“These people come from diverse professional backgrounds. We’ve had engineers, bankers — these are trusted agents, consumers, friends, family, people who the elderly trust with their finances,” Lindsay said. “A lot of family members, spouses, caregivers, needy children, grandchildren, best friends and neighbors,…
