No one ever wants to be a victim of financial abuse. It is a very devastating experience and just having the thought of someone abusing you financially can make your insides want to turn out. And it feels even worse when it is done to the elderly in your community. It may even be your relative; grandparents or parents who are now too old to manage their funds individually. A malicious person may choose to take advantage of that and manipulate these poor elderly folks to serve their needs financially. It is for this reason that you need to take legal action on anyone you find taking advantage of an elderly person and abusing him/her financially. Here are some of the protection measures that you can put in play to avoid such incidents from occurring to your elderly relatives or parents.
1. Have Regular Money Talks With Them
The elderly people are known to frequently forget things. And it is very easy for them to forget what you told them a few days back. In some serious cases, you may find the very elderly folks forget things almost immediately you tell it to them. It is for this reason that it is not wise to leave the elderly people alone to the point that they even feel isolated. Reach out to your elderly relatives as much as you can and check if they are keeping up with their Lendgreen payments or whether they have been in contact with strangers or other unfamiliar people. They may not be as enthusiastic when it comes to matters of sharing their financial information. But at least try as much as you can to talk to them and have the money talks on a regular basis.
2. Streamline Their Expenses
Most of the older people have a tendency of having a lot of different accounts. And the main reason for this is that most of the time, they are opening these accounts in an effort to get the latest high-interest rate offers in the market. It is, thus, important that you tr as much as you can to be on top of how they manage their funds and even try and consolidate some of the accounts where possible. This will make the management of the accounts be much easier for you and them too.
3. Be Careful When Moving or Closing Their Accounts
You do not want to end up facing legal challenges simply because you did not take the necessary precautions when closing your elder relatives’ accounts. But simplifying how your elderly parents and relatives manage money will make it a lot easier for you and them to manage any open accounts. It also enables you to spot any irregularities in the transactions in the accounts. By monitoring their accounts whenever you can, you can just as easily detect an irregularity in the accounts and stop them before they get out of hand.
4. Educate Them About The Current Scams and Solicitations
Always inform your elderly loved ones to refrain from offering any of their personal information to other people. Tell them to keep their personal information like Social Security Number and credit card numbers away from other people and never share them. Elderly people have a tendency of trusting anyone they see appears to be friendly to them. And that can land them and their finances in trouble. It is, thus, upon you to protect them.
5. Add Elder Protection Monitoring Services
One such service is EverSafe which will always keep tabs on the finances of your elderly loved ones. This will allow you to know whenever a withdrawal has been made on their accounts, if there are any missing deposits or odd charges in their accounts. You will, thus, have ample time to respond swiftly if these transactions are ways of defrauding your elderly loved one.
