Fraudsters are beginning to target advisors in order to obtain client information and steal their money, warned Sherryl Ray, director of operations at EP Wealth Advisors.
“Scammers are becoming increasingly cleverer,” said Ray. “We have to stop considering these scams as something perpetrated by one person and think of scamming in terms of large scale operations targeting a large audience of potential victims.”
Ray made the comments in the wake of a Federal Trade Commission report on the increasing number of frauds reported to the commission in 2018. She also is a panelist at the Invest In Women Conference sponsored by Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines to be held April 29 to May 1 in Atlanta.
The panel, “Protecting Loved Ones From Scammers,” will be moderated by Erin Durkin Voisin, director of financial planning at EP Wealth Advisors, which has offices in California and elsewhere in the West. In addition to Ray, Dan Moisand of Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando and Melbourne, Fla., is a panelist.
EP Wealth Advisors has changed some of its practices to protect clients, but educating clients to the potential of being defrauded is a key to attacking the growing problem, she said.
“You have to reach a balance between cautioning clients and scaring them too much,” noted Ray. “One of the scariest schemes we have seen recently is scammers fishing for information on clients through advisors.”
Moisand said, “Seniors in particular are under siege from scammers.” When a vulnerable senior is identified the thieves bombard the person with phone calls, emails, mail and even personal visits. “One thing you can do for your clients is convince them not to answer the phone if they do not recognize the number.”
Don’t act in haste. “A legitimate caller will wait for your business. Anyone who says you have to act now is not legitimate,” he said.
Battling scammers is a colossal battle, Moisand added.
According to the FTC report on 2018 scams, the agency received nearly three million complaints of financial fraud from consumers in 2018, a dramatic increase from the previous year. Consumers reported losing nearly $1.48 billion to fraud in 2018, 38 percent more than the year before.