While working in a nursing home as an administrator in the Dallas/Fort Worth area 11 years ago, Susan Hodges admitted three new residents who were different than others who lived there.
“They were depressed and anxious,” Hodges told Financial Advisor magazine. “Turns out they were wards of the state of Texas whose assets were under the control of a guardianship company after a Tarrant County Probate Judge deemed them incompetent.”
The elderly wards were worried because they felt scammed and unsafe.
“One lady told me the Court had stolen more than a million dollars from her bank account,” said Hodges.
When Hodges, a licensed nursing facility administrator, called the resident’s daughter and the lawyer who was listed in the resident’s admittance records, they hung up on her.
Since 2006, Hodges has noticed a rising number of the elderly enduring the same fate.
“It’s devastating because there is nothing I could do to help and it seemed that the Court and the lawyers were complicit in the fraud,” said Hodges, who is no longer working at a nursing facility but is instead working as a consultant. She wrote a book called A Breach of Trust to warn the public.
“The number of scams on the elderly continues unabated,” said Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission. “Every time we stomp out a fraud scheme and put somebody in jail, there's another scam that surfaces to take its place.”
According to a North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) study, 29 percent of those surveyed say their agencies has seen an increase in senior fraud cases and almost none have seen a decrease in complaints.
“It is imperative that we detect and prevent senior financial fraud before criminals who prey on our most vulnerable citizens steal from and devastate them,” said NASAA President and Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce Mike Rothman. “The clear message from our NASAA members, who are the securities regulators on the frontlines, is that we need everyone to step up and apply greater resources to stop financial fraud against seniors.”