For his most elderly client, a 103-year-old woman, Michael Zmistowski is more than a financial advisor.

“Believe it or not, the main thing I work on is handling her caregivers,” Zmistowski says. “I have a caregiver manager who oversees 24-7 in-home care for my client.”

Zmistowski, a Tampa, Fla.-based financial advisor, is protecting clients from caregiver fraud, where private caregivers, medical professionals or family members steal money and information from elderly or disabled individuals.

“Caregiving has all kinds of elder abuse possibilities,” Zmistowski says. “When I set up caregivers, I put locks on clients’ cabinets and doors so caregivers can’t get to private information like securities accounts. I think we, as advisors, also have to protect clients from scams.”

Zmistowski believes advisors form a strong line of defense against fraud and exploitation in Florida, which by many measurements leads the country in financial crime. Florida has experienced an influx of retirees, immigrants and affluence—all vulnerable to fraud. And despite efforts to strengthen regulation and enforcement, advisors may present the best fraud protection for Floridians.

“I’m not sure if they are new or different scams, but there certainly seems to be more of them,” Dan Moisand says. “We have Ponzi schemes, home repair scams and deficient or non-existent products being sold.”

Moisand, a Melbourne, Fla.-based CFP licensee with Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo, says fraud mainly targets the elderly. “As the population ages, one of the downsides is that cognitive decline becomes more pronounced,” Moisand says. “We’re going to have more vulnerability on our hands. It’s something advisors have to get their heads around quickly.”

Eleanor Blayney, consumer advocate for the national CFP Board, says seniors are also more susceptible because they come from a different generation and are more likely to trust. “When millennials reach their senior years, they might not trust anything,” she says, “but the World War II generation is more apt to trust professionals—and they have wealth as a result of saving and accumulation.”

Moisand says the newly affluent become targets for product fraud. “Some want to make money quickly, are attracted to products outside of the mainstream or distrust financial services,” he says. “There are mailers saying, ‘We don’t just offer this to anybody. This is a special deal. This is how people get rich and we can get you on the inside.’”

Matthew Guy, an analyst with the Florida Department of Financial Services, acknowledges advisor fraud also occurs. “There are people who use illegitimate designations,” Guy says. “There’s issues with registered securities brokers who are selling insurance but are not licensed as insurance agents, and insurance agents who are working with securities-related products who are not securities brokers.”

Paul Auslander, chairman of the Florida Financial Planning Association, believes the fraud outbreak isn’t specific to Florida. Yet more than 80% of Floridians over 40 have been solicited to participate in fraudulent schemes. According to the FTC, Florida is the most fraud-prone state, with over 1,000 fraud cases reported for every 100,000 residents annually—double the national average.

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