It is common for elderly consumers to receive telephone calls that attempt to scam them out of their money. Scams ranging from fake bank calls to imaginary grandchildren — allegedly in danger, jail or in need of money — con many elderly people out of money.
Lately, many banks and financial institutions have been attempting to do all they can to end elderly extortion.
Lexology discusses the matter further.
There is pressure on financial institutions to protect the elderly financial consumers, and banks and credit unions are in an opportune position to be able to be alerted to financial exploitation.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has done a great job laying out certain recommendations that would help banks and credit unions be more likely to recognize and detect such abuse in their March 2016 “Advisory for financial institutions on preventing and responding to elder financial exploitation.” The recommendations are as follows:
- Develop, implement and maintain internal protocols and procedures for protecting account holders from elder financial exploitation.
- Train management and staff to prevent, detect, and respond to elder financial exploitation.
- Detect elder financial exploitation by harnessing technology.
- Report all cases of suspected exploitation to relevant federal, state and local authorities.
- Protect older account holders.
- Collaborate with other stakeholders
There are many recommendations within each of these general guidelines, but the important thing to know is that the elder financial exploitation risk is growing as technological accessibility continues to improve. All banks need to be aware that there is a problem, but there is also guidance, from groups such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Elderly consumers are frequently targets of scams because of their stable income or acquired wealth.
