Business Law Section launches ‘Senior$mart$’ initiative to help seniors avoid scams
Judge Lori Vaughan: ‘As you can imagine, a big portion of our presentation is how to recognize and avoid financial scams; they’re everywhere now. I feel like every time we identify something and get the word out, the scammers come up with a new strategy.”
The Business Law Section’s Financial Literacy Task Force scored a major victory several years ago when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Dorothy L. Hukill Financial Literacy Act,” which requires Florida high school students to earn a half-credit in financial literacy to graduate.
Now the section is launching a new initiative aimed at helping Florida seniors recognize scams and manage their finances.
The program – “Senior$mart$” – offers presentations on budgeting, retirement accounts, and the growing array of fraud schemes targeting older Americans.
The Hukill Act honors a late Volusia County teacher and legislator and crowned years of task force advocacy.
Sponsors saw an urgent need to better equip teens to manage the responsibilities and temptations of modern life, especially the barrage of credit card offers destined for their mailboxes and freshman dorms.
“The idea was that if we could help students understand credit cards and bank accounts coming out of high school, we could give them a foundation upon which they could build and hopefully avoid ending up in my courtroom,” said task force Judicial Chair Lori Vaughan, a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Florida’s Middle District.
Today, the task force is setting its sights on educating and protecting the other end of the demographic spectrum – Florida seniors.
Referring to statistics that show 42% of Americans spend more money than they earn, the “Senior$mart$” power point offers tips for budgeting and dealing with medical debt, describes the pitfalls of retirement accounts, credit cards, co-signing for family members and jointly titled assets, describes types of bank and investment accounts and when to utilize them, and offers advice on building relationships with banks and protecting credit.
And it stresses avoiding fraud.
“As you can imagine, a big portion of our presentation is how to recognize and avoid financial scams; they’re everywhere now,” Vaughan says. “I feel like every time we identify something and get the word out, the scammers come up with a new strategy.”
Other sections of the presentation deal with foreclosure swindles, reverse mortgages, predatory mortgage loans, as well as tech support, utility, lottery, charity, and insurance scams, among others. Vaughan says scams are hard to avoid, especially for people who feel less than proficient with AI and modern technology.
Vaughan’s current docket includes a case of an apparent romance scam in which the victim was defrauded by someone who communicated only online. Vaughan said a friend’s mother was recently targeted.
The woman rushed to a Western Union to wire money when she was told that a relative was locked up in a foreign jail. She paused at the last minute when she saw a sign above the counter warning patrons about bail scams.
“She decided to call a family member and ask, ‘is this real?’” Vaughan said. “They found out they were being scammed.”
The Bankruptcy Bar Association of the Southern District of Florida has been giving presentations locally and joined the task force in a recent event to begin spreading the word, Vaughan said.
The groups could use some help, Vaughan said.
“Two things we need,” she said. “One is for any people who have connections to senior groups that would benefit from hearing these presentations to reach out to us. The other is volunteers.”
Vaughan urges volunteers to contact task force members who are listed here: Financial Literacy Task Force – Business Law Section of The Florida Bar.
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