Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices and their traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie, while offering you meaningful modern solutions to help you enhance your company’s growth. I’m your host, Dave Cain.
Dave: Today, we’re going to talk about the terrible fact that hundreds of thousands of adults, older than 60 years old, are abused, neglected, or financially exploited on a day to day basis. Today’s topic is not an easy one, but it’s necessary, and it’s one that today’s guest is particularly passionate about. Darlene Finzer, a principal with Rea and Associates, is committed to educating others about the signs of financial abuse among the elderly.
Dave: While elder abuse is hard to detect, warning signs do exist, and it’s up to those who see the signs, like us, to speak up.
Dave: Welcome back to unsuitable, Darlene.
Darlene Finzer: Thank you, Dave. It’s great to be here.
Dave: You know, normally you’re on this show to talk about pension reform and pension planning and 401ks and all that stuff. And today, we have a very serious topic. So, welcome and looking forward to the next few minutes.
Darlene: Thank you. It’s great to be here. And I wasn’t aware that anything related to pension wasn’t serious, but we’ll go with that.
Dave: Well yeah, it is serious. I guess … Way to go, way to go, but you know, let’s start. How did you gain the passion for studying and educating elder abuse?
Darlene: Well, I think-
Dave: Can you walk us through that a little bit?
Darlene: Sure. I think my passion wasn’t necessarily just in that specific area of the elder abuse, but with that senior population in general. So, I had a personal experience with my grandmother. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and we went through that with her and the changes that she experienced and that we, as a family, experienced, and it really drove my passion for just the changes that occur as we age.
Dave: Yeah. Well, all of us in our listeners all have a parent, an aunt, an uncle, grandparent, neighbor, friend that may be under this umbrella. And so, I think. We’re looking for … I just want to pick your brain on how we can better recognize what’s going on. So, let’s get started.
Darlene: Okay.
Dave: You know, the first thing I think we have to do is shout out to our colleagues. You and I talked off mic that in the past couple of years we’ve had a colleague in our Mentor office as well as a couple of colleagues in our … Ohio office bring elder abuse to the forefront and made something very positive happen out of a very negative situation. So, let’s both acknowledge those offices for stepping forward.
Darlene: I agree with that. And the nice thing about that is that even though it wasn’t until September of last year that CPA’s became mandatory reporters of elder abuse or suspected elder abuse, that these individuals recognized it and did something about it even when they were not required to.
Dave: Right. Well, let’s start there. I guess I was unaware before talking to you that there is a mandatory reporting of elder abuse by CPAs. When did that officially kick off? Was it last fall?
Darlene: Correct. So, it was September 29th of 2018 whenever CPAs became a part of the group that are mandatory reporters. Now, there have been other groups that have been mandatory reporters prior to that, but CPAs, along with some other professionals, were added to that group last year. And essentially, the reason why they were added is we are one of the groups that deal with this population, and we have the ability to be able to see some of those signs and to help protect those individuals by identifying that and reporting it to the appropriate authorities.
Dave: You know, it just occurred to me that you’re a board member for the Ohio Society of CPAs. Did you have anything to do with pushing this through?
Darlene: I did not. This is actually through the Ohio Revised Code, so it is a state mandate versus just something through our profession.
Dave: That’s interesting. Our profession is well known for being a trusted adviser, and of course we’re looking at financial documents and investment statements and having those conversations. So, I can see how our profession, and it may be more evident in our profession than some others.
Darlene: Right? So, there are essentially three different categories of elder abuse. There’s actual abuse, there’s neglect, and there’s exploitation. And when we talk about exploitation, that is where we get into the financial piece. And you are absolutely correct, that as a trusted advisor for these individuals, that we have the ability to know whether or not there is the potential for financial exploitation because we can see that financial information. We know whether or not there’s changes happening that we typically wouldn’t see within their financials that could indicate that they are being exploited in some fashion.
Dave: Do you have any statistical data or anything from conversations you’ve had of where this exploitation a begins? Is it a caregiver? Is it an investment adviser? Anything there that you can shed light on?
Darlene: Sure. So, from the financial exploitation piece, seniors lose about $36 million annually, and about a third of that is through criminal fraud. The remaining amount is someone that is either a family member or someone that they are familiar with .
Dave: 36 million a year. That’s just what is being reported. Think of the dollars that aren’t being reported.
Darlene: Correct. So, when we look at elder abuse, it’s estimated that one in 10 seniors that are in a private home setting are being exploited in some manner. And it’s also estimated that only one in 44 cases is actually being reported.
Dave: One in 44.
Darlene: Correct.
Dave: We need to correct those numbers.
Darlene: We do.
Dave: That’s astonishing.
Darlene: Right.
Dave: So, obviously you’ve studied this. You’ve had a personal experience. We’ve had personal experiences as a firm. Can you maybe shed some light on some examples? Can you share some examples without breaching the confidentiality issue?
Darlene: Sure. So, I’ll give you an example, and this is part of the reason why we see so much of the financial exploitation happening. We’re obviously aware of the scammers trying to commit fraud against these individuals. This group, our senior population, actually those 50 and older, hold 70% of the wealth in are in our country. So, that’s why they’re a prime target. And with these individuals, whenever we’re looking at the family members, there are many reasons, and a lot of them have to deal with psychological or emotional reasons. So, if you have an individual who is caring for a parent or an aunt or someone like that, they have that added caregiver’s stress. They might be working full time, but also trying to care for an individual, and it’s just adding to their everyday burden of things that they need to accomplish.
Darlene: So, we have caregiver stress. We could have individuals who are financially dependent, either the senior on the child, or niece or nephew, or vice versa. And having that, there might be a sense of entitlement also. And just having that close family relationship, the senior feels like they need to be aware of that, that they can’t go against that family relationship. So, there’s really an emotional component there that if someone is taking money from them that either they feel like they’ve done something wrong or there might be some mental abuse that’s happening of, I won’t take care of you or I won’t bring you your groceries if you don’t give me this money, and they don’t want to hinder that relationship that they have with that individual because it’s someone that they love.
Darlene: But, I will say that to those individuals who might be experiencing this or to those individuals who think that it’s proper to take that, that they have a sense of entitlement, that you have no entitlement to that money. That is not your money. That is the senior’s money, and you should not feel that there’s any sense of entitlement to that.
Dave: Right. Right. Now, certainly the financial, let’s dip into the other two. You’ve kind of touched on one of them, but just straight out abuse. Again, stories are helpful as we talk through this. Maybe not the most enjoyable to talk about. But again, in your experience, can you share some things you’ve heard, seen in your position as far as straight out abuse?
Darlene: Yeah. So, abuse comes in three different categories. So there’s physical abuse, mental abuse, or the sexual assault. Physical abuse obviously has to do with physical contact. So, it can be as assertive as punching someone or pinching, hitting, and it’s also confinement. So for example, if someone is taking care of a senior, and they need to leave for the day to go to work, if they tie that senior in a chair, which has happened before, that is considered abuse, obviously. But confinement is included in that.
Darlene: When we talk about mental abuse, it is them using their situation with that senior against the senior for their own benefit. So, they are obviously saying that they won’t take care of them or they will take something away from them, and the senior feels obligated to let it happen because they don’t want to lose that connection with an individual.
Dave: And the third thing you mentioned was a straight out and neglect.
Darlene: Correct. So, 45% of the cases of neglect are due to self neglect, which is a form of abuse. And typically, we see that, and I always have the vision of the crazy cat lady that comes into mind whenever I think about self neglect, and we kind of smile about that, but you know it is really serious because if we have an individual who has pets and sometimes has a lot of them because sometimes this population suffers from loneliness, and so they want to have some connection with something. And a lot of times pets will do that, but they might not have the means to take care of those pets. So, they need to make a decision, do I care for my pets, do I care for myself? And therefore, they are taking care of their pets rather than themselves.
Darlene: We also see that self neglect whenever these individuals are on a fixed income, and they need to make a decision between, do I buy food or do I pay for medication that I need? And a lot of times they are paying for that medication and not buying the food or vice versa.
Dave: You know, Darlene, what happens … I mean again, I’m coming from the side of ignorance on this, is what happens, what are my avenues if I see, sense abuse? Who do I report this to?
Darlene: Right? So, in every county in the state of Ohio, we have an Adult Protective Services Division of Job and Family Services. So, if you suspect that there is elder abuse happening, then I would reach out to your county Adult Protective Services Agency. If it is something that you feel that the senior is in extreme need, if there’s an emergency, then obviously I would contact 911.
Dave: Okay, well the self neglect, that’s probably maybe easier to report because you could call and say, Hey, there’s a neighbor, she has 40 cats and newspapers all over the place. That’s probably the easier one. But when you get into abuse and the exploitation and involves a family member or somebody very close to that person, that becomes a whole different ballgame. That is complicated.
Darlene: It’s very complicated, and that is why so many cases are unreported because the family member doesn’t want to do anything about that happening, because they want to protect that family member because of the connection that they have between the two of them, and also the senior feels like they’re sad, they’re embarrassed, they feel like they’ve done something wrong to let this happen to them, and that’s why they don’t want to report it because then they’re saying, Hey, I did something wrong or else this wouldn’t have happened to me.
Dave: Let me attack this from the CPA side of business. Let’s say I’m visiting with a client, as we often do, and again, you sense or you’re told in confidence that abuse is happening. What are my avenues to report that? Obviously, there’s some confidentiality, there’s some ethics involved. I’m kind of in the middle. What would you … Financial advisors are gonna come into this. What are our options?
Darlene: Right. So, I think it’s important that, because we are a trusted advisor, that we do know our clients. And the one thing that I would caution on is if you are told straight out that, Hey, I am being abused or Someone stole money from me is to maybe investigate it a little bit further. The one thing we need to be aware of is that there is the potential for cognitive decline such as with my grandmother and Alzheimer’s disease where how they see things are not always exactly correct.
Darlene: So, you do need to keep that in mind. But if you do believe, if you have some sort of evidence, if they say, Someone took $40,000 from my bank account, you can obviously see whether or not $40,000 was taken from the bank account or if there’s unusual activity in investments they may have. If you do identify that, and it doesn’t have to be … You don’t have to actually know that abuse happened. If you suspect that it happened, it needs to be reported. And that’s when you reach out to Job and Family Services to the Adult Protective Services.
Dave: Again, as advisors and close family members, is it maybe an option where you say, Look mom, hold my hand. Together, we’re going to go find a solution for this. We’re going to go report it together. I’ll be with you.
Darlene: Yes. Obviously, you can offer that. Because of the emotional component, I’m not sure that they would go to that extreme, but we definitely need to be looking at a solution.
Darlene: So, depending on the situation, it might be a situation where a son or daughter or niece or nephew was under some strain, and maybe you have the opportunity to sit down and speak with them, and maybe you can find a solution that way. But if there is something that actually has happened, if you identify that it has happened, and even if that individual doesn’t want to do anything about it, we, as a trusted advisor, we are required to report it whether they want to pursue it or not.
Dave: Even if my licensing is at stake because of breach of confidentiality.
Darlene: Well it’s not a breach of confidentiality because we are mandatory reporters, and if we identified this potential, then we are required to report it. Even if it turns out to be a false claim, we are required to report it, or we can be fined for not reporting it.
Dave: So, it goes the other way-
Darlene: Correct.
Dave: If a suspect and don’t report, uh-oh.
Darlene: Correct.
Dave: So, is this also a good opportunity to have discussions about financial power of attorney and documents like that being drawn up so the senior is protected with those certain types of documents?
Darlene: Absolutely. And I’m actually trained, and we have a tool that we can assess the financial cognitive ability of an individual. And if we start that tracking now, we can develop a guideline and determine whether or not there’s changes in that cognitive ability as we move through some of the major financial decisions that they may encounter.
Dave: Right. Darlene, I have to tell ya’, I’d much rather be talking to you about pension plans and 401K training and compliance than this topic. This is not an easy topic for discussion.
Darlene: Right. It’s not, but it is very important, and I’m glad that we are able to share it with our audience.
Dave: Let’s go back to the financial side of it. Again, there’s maybe some tried and true things that again, as advisors, we should always be looking at. Are there two names on signatures? Are two signatures required for withdrawals? And just some basic things like that, that maybe there are two signatures for a transaction, things like that.
Darlene: Right. And I don’t want to give out all our secrets of what we’re looking for, but we can definitely be looking at changes in behaviors or patterns as we’re looking through the financial data that our clients provide to us.
Dave: What can our listeners do? Give us some ideas. I mean, I think we can pull them from our conversation, but if there are three, four, two things that we could do, what would you suggest?
Darlene: I think that if anyone suspects any type of elder abuse that they do need to report it. Even though they might not be a mandatory reporter, I think they have an obligation to our senior population to try to keep them safe. And if they suspect that, I think that they need to report it to Adult Protective Services.
Dave: So report, report, report.
Darlene: Exactly.
Dave: And worry about it later.
Darlene: Yes. And reporting can be anonymous. So, if you’re scared that, I’d sure I shared Mrs. Jones information because I suspected that she was being abused. Mrs. Jones and her family isn’t going to come back to you and say, Why did you do that? Because it is anonymous.
Dave: Right. What role do you think that technology has played in all this? Again, our first reaction is, Well, seniors maybe aren’t as active on computers and their phones as other generations. But as I look, they are. They’re doing stuff that they haven’t done before and are proud of it, but maybe they’re not as sharp in that area.
Darlene: Yeah, I think that technology has obviously played into it because it allows more means for, especially outside forces to try and take money from these seniors. But they’re scams that are out there every day, and like even AARP is mindful of that and trying to provide information to the public about some of these scams that are happening.
Dave: So, being quiet is not an option. If you see it, you gotta report it.
Darlene: Absolutely.
Dave: Yeah. Good, good. In the next few minutes we have, as we wind this down, are there any groups we can join, make donations to that help the cause, help educate the public? Anything you can think of?
Darlene: Well, there are several different organizations out there that help with the seniors. I guess it’s not going into our pockets. Just be aware of it. If there are any programs in your particular area, through a senior center, through any of the like Job and Family Services, any programs that you can bring to your community and help support that, I would say try to do that. Just try to educate your local community as far as what some of the scams are, and if there is a possibility to help an individual to understand that it’s not right to be exploited, whether it’s a family member or not to be by their side and to support them in knowing that it’s okay to report.
Dave: If any of our listeners need a speaker or a program, are you willing to volunteer and do that? I already know the answer to that, but go ahead and tell us about that.
Darlene: Yes, absolutely. I do have a passion for our senior population, and I’m actually a trained speaker for the Alzheimer’s Association. But, any topic relating to this, to elder abuse, Alzheimer’s disease, really anything dealing with the more senior population, I’m fine with getting that information out and educating the public.
Dave: Certainly this is a slippery slope, and you’ve helped us navigate this a little bit, but our listeners or colleagues or clients that are listening, if they have a question or concern, encourage them to reach out to Rea and Associates, and we’ll connect them with you and get the ball rolling and get this thing fixed.
Darlene: Absolutely.
Dave: So, thanks again for joining us, Darlene.
Dave: Our guest today has been Darlene Finzer from Rea Associates located in New Philadelphia. Although I say that’s your home office, you are across the state in all of our offices, so I’m not sure where your home office is anymore.
Darlene: I’m not sure where it is either, so I’ll just claim all of them.
Dave: Great. Thanks. As a growing number of the population ages, elder abuse will continue to be a problem. Hopefully, thanks to you, more people are aware of what to look for in the future.
Dave: Listeners, are you concerned about elder abuse happening to you or someone you love? Reach out to Darlene to learn more. We’re happy to answer any questions you might leave in the comments section. In the meantime, please take a moment to like this episode, share it with your friends, and subscribe to our channel. Until next time, I’m Dave Cain encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.
Disclaimer: The views expressed on unsuitable on Rea Radio are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rea and Associates. The podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the professional advice you would receive elsewhere. Consult with a trusted advisor about your unique situation so they can expertly guide you to the best solution for your specific circumstance.