Aging parents with dementia? Beware of thieving financial advisors



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Dementia and money do not go well together.

Research tells us that financial decision-making is the first ability to decline when Alzheimer's disease starts to be destructive. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias affect about 5.5 million people in our country. This does not take into account the many others who show early signs of problems, such as short-term memory loss, for which dementia has not yet been diagnosed. All are vulnerable to unscrupulous people who want to separate them from their money. It's so simple: these affected seniors may not be able to understand what's going on. They no longer read or understand their financial statements. Regular articles in financial sector publications tell of brokers or other advisers being scammed by their own elderly and confident clients. Even in the face of accusations and sometimes lawsuits against an individual, institutions that use some of these bad apples tend to keep them afterwards. After all, they generate significant costs for those who employ them.

At a recent scandal in Wells Fargo, an independent broker was stealing older customers to pay other clients whose accounts were down. He cheated them of $ 1.16 million over 11 years in Wells Fargo, even continuing the scam after the death of a client. The victims were "elderly retirees with limited financial skills," according to the lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some had Alzheimer's disease or other dementias. How did the professional thief get so long?

It is highly likely that no one was interested in what the elderly person was doing with the accounts he had with the broker. It is clear that the most vulnerable seniors are those who have no family to try to protect their finances as they get older. But even when the family is available, AgingParents.com, who consults with families, tends to think again and again of absolute trust in the long-time financial advisor. After all, the relationship has been around for years, sometimes decades, the family thinks. Why would anyone suspect wrongdoing? Confidence is fine, but as the saying goes, "trust, check". It's just a matter of caution. It must be taken into account that mom or dad, regardless of their reputation, could lose track of their invested assets and trust too much a person who might not be honest. People working in financial services are largely honest, but since they know what assets a person possesses, how to control them, how to withdraw from an account and manipulate statements, temptation and opportunities can change a person. This changed the man who stole his naïve and confident clients from Wells Fargo, who never knew that they had been scammed. Sometimes nobody will find out until someone dies and the account is examined by an independent person.

Confusion about the financial statementsStoryblocks.com

In our own family, when our elderly mother began to lose her ability to track her bills, we took the responsibility to review each bill and statement each month. We were lucky not to have resisted our surveillance. Some parents do it. Their actions can clearly demonstrate a loss of ability to control their finances, but their relentless resistance to any help (in their mind, an "interference") discourages the family and there is no persistent follow-up in seeking the necessary supervision. We can not give up because there is resistance. Too many things are at stake

A first step in finding a way to monitor an elderly parent's accounts is to: get your account online access. We can reassure the parent that it does not give you the power to do anything, to exchange or control anything. It's about ensuring that no one benefits from the parent. Some older parents do not even have online access and do not oppose it. It is useful to have access. Imagine that the ten customers stolen by the dishonest broker in Wells Fargo have adult children with online access to their brokerage accounts. Adult children checking the returns each month would have witnessed suspicious withdrawals. They could have interrogated them and put an immediate end to the theft. Professional thieves rely on the fact that most of the time, no one would be able to pay attention except for an impaired senior who trusts the broker. This is the trap: an undisputed trust and no one is watching over the finances of the elder. It's too dangerous.

The bottom line is, if you have an aging loved one who has a short-term memory loss and is investing assets in one or more accounts, it's time to ask whether you can respectfully put yourself in a position. to supervise the accounts. Please persist with every effort possible. Your protection could even prevent a single unscrupulous financial professional from taking advantage of it because no one was watching.

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Dementia and money do not go well together.

Research tells us that financial decision-making is the first ability to decline when Alzheimer's disease starts to be destructive. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias affect about 5.5 million people in our country. This does not take into account the many others who show early signs of problems, such as short-term memory loss, for which dementia has not yet been diagnosed. All are vulnerable to unscrupulous people who want to separate them from their money. It's so simple: these affected seniors may not be able to understand what's going on. They no longer read or understand their financial statements. Regular articles in financial sector publications tell of brokers or other advisers being scammed by their own elderly and confident clients. Even in the face of accusations and sometimes lawsuits against an individual, institutions that use some of these bad apples tend to keep them afterwards. After all, they generate significant costs for those who employ them.

At a recent scandal in Wells Fargo, an independent broker was stealing older customers to pay other clients whose accounts were down. He cheated them of $ 1.16 million over 11 years in Wells Fargo, even continuing the scam after the death of a client. The victims were "elderly retirees with limited financial skills," according to the lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some had Alzheimer's disease or other dementias. How did the professional thief get so long?

It is highly likely that no one was interested in what the elderly person was doing with the accounts he had with the broker. It is clear that the most vulnerable seniors are those who have no family to try to protect their finances as they get older. But even when the family is available, AgingParents.com, who consults with families, tends to think again and again of absolute trust in the long-time financial advisor. After all, the relationship has been around for years, sometimes decades, the family thinks. Why would anyone suspect wrongdoing? Confidence is fine, but as the saying goes, "trust, check". It's just a matter of caution. It must be taken into account that mom or dad, regardless of their reputation, could lose track of their invested assets and trust too much a person who might not be honest. People working in financial services are largely honest, but since they know what assets a person possesses, how to control them, how to withdraw from an account and manipulate statements, temptation and opportunities can change a person. This changed the man who stole his naïve and confident clients from Wells Fargo, who never knew that they had been scammed. Sometimes nobody will find out until someone dies and the account is examined by an independent person.

Confusion about the financial statementsStoryblocks.com

In our own family, when our elderly mother began to lose her ability to track her bills, we took the responsibility to review each bill and statement each month. We were lucky not to have resisted our surveillance. Some parents do it. Their actions can clearly demonstrate a loss of ability to control their finances, but their relentless resistance to any help (in their mind, an "interference") discourages the family and there is no persistent follow-up in seeking the necessary supervision. We can not give up because there is resistance. Too many things are at stake

A first step in finding a way to monitor an elderly parent's accounts is to: get your account online access. We can reassure the parent that it does not give you the power to do anything, to exchange or control anything. It's about ensuring that no one benefits from the parent. Some older parents do not even have online access and do not oppose it. It is useful to have access. Imagine that the ten customers stolen by the dishonest broker in Wells Fargo have adult children with online access to their brokerage accounts. Adult children checking the returns each month would have witnessed suspicious withdrawals. They could have interrogated them and put an immediate end to the theft. Professional thieves rely on the fact that most of the time, no one would be able to pay attention except for an impaired senior who trusts the broker. This is the trap: an undisputed trust and no one is watching over the finances of the elder. It's too dangerous.

The bottom line is, if you have an aging loved one who has a short-term memory loss and is investing assets in one or more accounts, it's time to ask whether you can respectfully put yourself in a position. to monitor the accounts. Please persist with every effort possible. Your protection could even prevent a single unscrupulous financial professional from taking advantage of it because no one was watching.

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