June is National Elder Abuse Awareness Month. Highlighting the problem of elder abuse shouldn’t be a one-month effort, it must be an all-the-time effort. Your credit union is working hard to be a shield for our elder members when it comes to financial abuse.
Elder financial abuse is a $30 billion a year problem, and experts fear it is even worse considering that there is likely unreported abuse due to shame and embarrassment. When anyone is defrauded it’s wrong, sad and a crime—someone’s hard earned money was stolen—but elder financial abuse is particularly egregious as the elder community is often on fixed incomes and dealing with higher health costs than other demographics. In short, elders can be greatly harmed by financial fraud and are often the most vulnerable as they come from a time where trust was a part of everyday life.
In today’s world, with the rise of technological enhancements and fraud rings that have considerable resources, a lot of fraudsters have found ways to pass themselves off as trustworthy — preying on elders’ trustworthiness. But it’s vital to remember that while there is growing concern around fraud stemming from technology and the new dynamic of Artificial Intelligence, about 70% of elder financial abuse is from someone the elder has a relationship with, often a family member.
Credit unions are uniquely positioned to fight this battle as the average age of a credit union member is approximately 52 years old. While 52 is certainly not old, it means credit unions have a large percentage of members 60 and older given the average age in the U.S. today is 39 years old. Your credit union’s average age of membership is right in the national range at 53, meaning we have plenty of older members to empower with tools to prevent financial fraud.
We have stepped up our efforts to tackle this problem. It’s not an easy thing to do because of the many layers of elder financial abuse, but we have made stopping it a primary focus. Between our staff training, strict procedures, system alerts, member support, and our fraud prevention product, Carefull, we have a lot to shield members from being defrauded.
We do need some help from you and recommend the following:
- Sign Up for Carefull! Since launching just a few months ago, Carefull has been a hit with our members. About 2,500 people are now utilizing our Carefull service in one way or another, either as the account owner, trusted contact, family member, etc. Carefull just makes sense. Here’s why. Your accounts are monitored closely for erratic behavior and it’s not just your credit union accounts but any account from any other provider you would like to add to the service. Why is this so important? Often members are unaware of suspicious transactions on their account because they don’t check their accounts regularly. This service takes away the challenge of that by alerting you as they happen. You could also do this with your credit union’s account alerts and we encourage that as well but why not also get your other accounts protected while getting Carefull’s other valuable features:
- $1 million in Identity Theft Insurance
- Credit Monitoring
- Home Title and Address monitoring
- Account Monitoring for one other member of your family is included.
- One-on-One fraud consultation with Carefull representatives.
- Ability to add Trusted Contacts
- Continual fraud education on new and emerging frauds.
Carefull is provided as a no-cost member benefit as it fits our mission of being the safest place to bank.
- Secure Your Hard Copy Financial Tools and Paper/Electronic Trails. Here’s a real-world elder fraud story. One of our long-time elderly members had their check book stolen by someone working in his home. Checks were written for weeks all over the state for all amounts. The check book was left in an unsecured area and stolen. It’s not hard to pass bad checks today. Fraudsters simply wash them and fill in their own name with new amounts. Too easy. You must secure your checkbook, plastic cards, account statements and anything that can be used against you, this includes your computers and phones. Ensure no one can easily go on to your devices and retrieve personal and financial information that can be used to defraud you.
- If Using Paper, Handle with Care. We’ve been beating the drum against paper checks and paper statements for some time now and many members have reduced their check writing and moved to paper statements. There’s only one reason we recommend this — we see fraud all the time with paper checks and account information in the mail. It’s that simple, so we urge you to reduce it. In a positive development, we are seeing the authorities getting more serious about prosecuting this type of fraud.
- How You Pay Bills. Do you know your credit union processes millions of dollars of ACH payments to vendors like the power company, credit card providers, other utilities, and more. The amount of fraud from ACH? Incredibly low. The ACH system is highly regulated and monitored so if you’re thinking about mailing a paper check to your cell phone provider vs. a simple ACH out of your account, the odds of fraud on the ACH transaction are miniscule. We know. We have heard from members that other than our bill pay system and ACH, can the credit union provide other tools. We are working on that and hope to be launching the Federal Reserve’s FedNow system in the future that can help with a variety of payments.
- Beneficiaries and Trusted Contacts. We also urge members to ensure their beneficiaries are squared away. Often when dealing with a decedent account we find heirs competing for funds. It happens and the clearer everything is laid out as to who gets what the better. This starts with having your beneficiaries clearly defined and ensuring they are updated if circumstances change. You also may want to have a Power of Attorney on your account who can act on your behalf if you fall ill or are incapacitated. The credit union has a new service to help you with that called Gentreo. Gentreo can also help create a will, living trust, health directive, and other key documents. We also urge members to add Trusted Contacts to their accounts. This is someone we can contact if we are trying to alert you of something vital on your account such as fraud, etc. and we are unable to reach you. Trusted Contacts can be a valuable safety net and they are now becoming much more common among the membership.
- Set a Meeting. There are so many things you can do to protect your account. Want to hear more? Feel free to set a meeting with the credit union at a time that works for you to go over tips and tools to avoid being defrauded. We have made this easy. Click here to set an appointment today!
