An elderly person gets a call from someone who says, “Grandma, do you know who this is?” If the person offers the name of a grandchild who sounds like the caller, the scammer immediately has his foot in the door.

After establishing communication (“Yes, it’s Sammy. How’ve you been since we were there?”) the fraudster asks for money for an emergency. Sometimes, cheating an elderly person out of money can be that easy.

Brie Williams, head of practice management at State Street Global Advisors, says financial advisors have numerous ways they can help their aging clients avoid becoming victims.

“Recognizing the fact that the person trying to steal your clients’ money could be absolutely anyone, is the best defense against fraud,” Williams says. “The con-artist could be a family member, a caregiver or a stranger.”

Williams will be a speaker at the third annual Invest In Women conference, sponsored by Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines.

At State Street Global Advisors, a wealth advisory and financial services firm with offices worldwide, Williams helps create a forum for financial advisors to exchange ideas. Prior to joining State Street Global, she was senior vice president at Putnam, where she was responsible for marketing communications to support Putnam’s global brand and retail mutual fund product line.

There are so many ways to that an advisor’s clients can become victims of fraud it is difficult to say which is the worst, Williams says, but seniors in the United States lose at least $3 billion a year to fraud and it could be much more because a lot of fraud losses are not reported.

“It’s a massive amount of money. Advisory firms should be providing education for advisors on what to watch for,” she says.

According to an Investor Protection Trust survey, 84 percent of experts specializing in investment fraud or financial exploitation of seniors say the problem is getting worse. Investor Protection Trust also says one in five seniors have been the victims of financial fraud.

To know if clients are susceptible to fraud, advisors need to watch for the telltale signs: changes in behavior or appearance, new best friends or love interests who enter the client’s life, loans that are suddenly taken out or unusual payments that are made.