A recent Fraud Prevention Night touched on some of the ways people can stay safe from fraud and scams in the southeast. The Estevan Police Service invited a number of financial institution workers to discuss some of the different topics related to scams.
Cindy Thompson from Scotiabank highlighted senior citizens and how fraud can especially impact them.
“Senior financial abuse occurs when somebody illegally or improperly uses seniors’ money or belongings for their own personal gain. So this can include theft, fraud, misuse of power of attorney, coercion, or changes to legal documents. It’s a growing concern with many seniors who are falling victims to various forms of financial exploitation.”
Common Senior Fraud
Thompson talks about some of the common cases of fraud and cams that tend to target seniors.
“The fraudsters may impersonate trusted entities like banks, governments, and deceive seniors into giving away money or personal information.”
“Another one we see is misuse of power of attorney. So individuals appoint an attorney that may exploit that position to control the senior’s finances for personal gain, undue influence. So the perpetrators may manipulate a senior into making financial decisions against their will, such as changing a will or withdrawing money.”
“There’s also family and caregiver abuse. So family members or caregivers may pressure seniors for money, and they may fail to repay loans or misuse their financial accounts.”
Read More:
In order to keep seniors safe, Thompson says bank workers such as tellers are trained to ask question when people come into their physical locations making requests.
“We ask all these questions. So now when people come in to set up a power of attorney, I make sure that I let them know that at least at Scotiabank, if the power of attorney comes in to do any transactions, they have to come in person and give us hard signatures. We can’t do anything over the phone with somebody who’s been appointed as a power of attorney. We need to see them.”
“If there’s any larger transactions that are unusual for that power of attorney to be doing in that person’s account, we definitely ask a whole lot of questions, and we ask for maybe even proof of bills at that point that they’re going to be paying on that person’s behalf. So that’s just one of many other things to worry about.”
Fraud Calls in Trouble
Thompson says one of the most common calls they receive relates to impersonations, where scammers will try to pretend that a senior’s family member is in trouble.
“They call and impersonate a lawyer or a police station or something and say, you’ve got to make bail, or you’ve got to help them out because your grandson’s been arrested in Costa Rica or something. Sometimes they do this by just having a conversation. You’ll tell them your grandson’s name by accident, and then they’ll use that for the rest of the conversation so that they’ll get you twisted up in knots where you won’t even know who said what first.”
Lawyers or police stations wouldn’t call to ask for bail, says Thompson.
More questions for less scams
As scams continue to pop up targeting people, Thompson says that tellers ask more questions to help out people potentially being scammed.
“We’re going to ask a whole lot of questions and hopefully stop you. No wonder why the bank line-up is long. But again, we’re not being nosy, we’re not trying to be intrusive. We really are trying to protect you. Sometimes we’ll even try to get a hold of the day you’re doing a transaction just to help you. It’s not because we’re trying to control your money or take your money. It’s because we just don’t want to see somebody get taken advantage of.”
Anyone looking for more information on fraud prevention can find it by contacting their local banking institution.
Click Here For The Original Source.
