Scams, Fraud, and Elder Financial Exploitation: How They Work and What to Do

Summary. How the machine works, what can actually be recovered, and what to do in the first hour.

It is not about being gullible

The single most damaging belief about fraud is that it happens to people who are careless or credulous.

It does not. It happens to physicians, attorneys, engineers, accountants, and — with grim regularity — to people who work in banking. It happens to people who have read articles like this one.

Fraud is not an argument you lose. It is a process you are placed inside. The design is consistent enough to describe:

1. The pretext. A reason to be talking that is plausible and, crucially, one you did not initiate: your grandson has been arrested · your computer is infected · this is the Social Security Administration · your account has been compromised · I am a warehouse supervisor stationed overseas and I have been thinking about you all week.

2. The authority. Someone who seems entitled to instruct you — a badge number, a case number, a bank's caller ID spoofed onto your phone, a company name you recognize.

3. The isolation. "Don't tell anyone, the investigation is confidential." "Your bank employee may be involved." "Your family will think you're incompetent." This step is the one that matters most, because the intervention that stops fraud is almost always another person hearing about it. Every competent scam attacks that possibility directly.

4. The urgency. A window measured in hours. A warrant. A frozen account. A closing that must happen today. Urgency prevents the pause during which you would think, and it prevents step 3 from failing.

5. The escalating commitment. A small first payment, then a larger one. Each payment makes the next easier, because the alternative is admitting the first one was a mistake. This is why victims frequently send money repeatedly over months.

6. The irreversible payment method. Gift cards. Wire transfers. Cryptocurrency. Payment apps. Cash couriers. This is the tell, and it is the only step that is nearly universal.

No legitimate organization — no government agency, no bank, no utility, no court — will ever ask you to pay with gift cards. Not once, not ever, for any reason. If you remember one sentence from this article, that is a defensible choice.

The categories

Romance and confidence fraud

Contact through a dating app, a social platform, or a game. Weeks or months of relationship-building — daily contact, genuine emotional investment, frequently more attention than the target has received in years. Then a crisis: a medical emergency, a customs fee, a frozen account, an investment opportunity, a flight home that requires a payment.

Losses in this category are the largest per victim of any consumer fraud, and the emotional damage exceeds the financial. A significant number of victims continue sending money after being told, credibly, that it is a scam — which is not stupidity but the ordinary behavior of a person in a relationship being asked to choose between a stranger's evidence and someone they love.

The variant that has grown fastest is the investment version — sometimes called "pig butchering" — where the relationship leads to a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform showing fabricated gains, and the withdrawal always requires one more fee.

The grandparent scam

A call at an odd hour. A young voice, distressed, saying "Grandma?" — and the target supplies the name. An arrest, an accident, an emergency in another state. A "lawyer" or "officer" takes over. There is a bail payment or a fine. Do not tell my parents — I'm so ashamed.

Voice cloning has made this substantially more effective, using audio taken from social media. A short clip is now enough to reproduce a grandchild's voice convincingly.

The countermeasure is a family code word, agreed in advance, and a hard rule: hang up and call the person back on the number you already have.

Tech support

A pop-up, a phone call, or a search result for a support number that belongs to the scammer. Remote access to the computer is granted. Something alarming is displayed. Payment is demanded for cleanup — and frequently the "refund" version follows months later, in which an overpayment is staged and the victim is asked to return the difference.

Once remote access is granted, the exposure includes every account with a saved password and every session already logged in.

Government impersonation

The Social Security Administration says your number has been suspended. The IRS says a warrant has been issued. Immigration says your status is being revoked. Medicare needs to verify your number for a new card. A jury summons was ignored and there is a contempt finding.

None of these agencies call and demand payment. The IRS initiates contact by mail. Social Security numbers are not "suspended." Nobody is arrested by telephone.

Bank and payment impersonation

Caller ID shows your bank. The caller knows the last four digits of your account. There has been fraud, and funds must be moved to a "safe account" — or you must send yourself a payment to "reverse" a fraudulent one.

A bank will never ask you to move money to protect it, and will never ask for a one-time code you received by text. The code is the attack.

Business email compromise and real estate wire fraud

An email that appears to come from your title company, your lawyer, your contractor, or your CFO, providing wire instructions. The instructions are the scammer's. The email is either spoofed or sent from a genuinely compromised account, and it frequently arrives during a real transaction with correct details.

Real estate closings are the highest-value version, and losses are frequently the buyer's entire down payment. The rule: never wire funds on instructions received by email. Call the escrow officer at a number you obtained independently and verify every digit.

Investment fraud

Guaranteed returns. Pressure and a deadline. "Exclusive" access. Cryptocurrency platforms with fabricated dashboards. Precious metals sold at enormous markups to people persuaded that their retirement account is at risk. Affinity fraud — through a church, an ethnic community, a professional group — where the introduction comes from someone trusted.

Check every seller and every product with the state securities regulator and the federal broker-check systems. It takes five minutes and it is dispositive far more often than people expect.

Utility, charity, and disaster fraud

A call threatening shutoff within the hour unless payment is made now, by prepaid card. A charity solicitation after a disaster. A contractor who appears in a storm-damaged neighborhood, takes a deposit, and leaves.

A utility will not demand immediate payment by prepaid card to prevent a shutoff, and every state's shutoff process involves written notice and a right to dispute.

Payment method determines recovery

This is the part nobody explains honestly, and it is the most important practical content in this article. What you can get back depends almost entirely on how you paid.

The electronic transfer rules

The Electronic Fund Transfer Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1693 and following, implemented at 12 C.F.R. Part 1005 — Regulation E — governs unauthorized electronic fund transfers from consumer accounts.

The mechanics that matter:

• Liability limits depend on how quickly you report. Reporting within two business days of learning of the loss caps liability at a low amount; delay raises it substantially; and failing to report an unauthorized transfer appearing on a statement within 60 days can eliminate protection for later transfers entirely.
• The institution must investigate and generally must provisionally credit the account while it does so.
• Put the notice in writing even after calling, and keep proof of the date.

The critical limitation: Regulation E covers unauthorized transfers. A transfer the consumer was tricked into authorizing is, in most institutions' view, an authorized transfer — which is why fraud-induced payment app transfers and wires are so difficult to recover. This is a live and contested area, and it is worth pressing the institution and, if refused, complaining to the regulator.

Wires

A wire is not reversible as a matter of right, but a recall request within hours sometimes works, particularly where the receiving institution has not released the funds and can freeze them.

For real estate wire fraud specifically, the FBI operates a rapid-response process that has recovered a meaningful share of reported losses when reported within 72 hours. Speed is everything.

Elder financial exploitation

A large share of financial harm to older adults does not come from strangers. It comes from family members, caregivers, and people occupying positions of trust — and it is harder to detect, harder to report, and harder to remedy precisely because of the relationship.

What it looks like

• A power of attorney used for the agent's benefit rather than the principal's
• A joint account added and then drained
• Property transferred by deed to a caregiver or one child
• Wills, beneficiary designations, or trusts changed shortly before death, in favor of the person providing care
• Isolation from other family, from friends, from advisors — the same step as in any scam
• Bills unpaid while the older adult's income is being received by someone else
• A caregiver who controls all communication and will not permit private conversation

The doctrines that reach it

Undue influence. Where a person's free will is overcome by another, a transaction — a gift, a deed, a will, a beneficiary change — may be set aside. Courts look at: a confidential relationship; the older adult's susceptibility (age, illness, isolation, dependence); the influencer's opportunity and disposition to exert influence; and an unnatural result that differs from prior intentions. Many states shift the burden of proof once a confidential relationship plus suspicious circumstances is shown.

Capacity. A transaction by a person who lacked capacity to understand its nature and consequences is voidable. Capacity is decision-specific — a person may lack capacity to convey real estate and retain capacity to make small gifts.

Fiduciary duty. An agent under a power of attorney, a trustee, a guardian, or a conservator owes duties of loyalty, care, and accounting. Self-dealing is a breach, and an agent can be compelled to account and to return property.

Statutory elder financial exploitation claims. Most states have them, and many provide enhanced remedies — multiplied damages, attorney's fees, and sometimes a presumption shift.

Criminal exposure. Theft, forgery, exploitation of a vulnerable adult, and — where interstate wires or mail were used — federal mail and wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and § 1343. Telemarketing fraud targeting older victims carries enhanced penalties under 18 U.S.C. § 2326. Identity-related offenses appear at § 1028 and § 1028A.

Where to report

Adult Protective Services. Every state has an APS agency that investigates abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation of vulnerable adults. Reports may be anonymous. Many states have mandatory reporters — including, in a growing number of states, financial institution employees.

Long-term care ombudsman, if the person is in a facility.

Law enforcement, including the state attorney general's elder unit.

The financial institution. Banks and broker-dealers have specific authority and, in many states, an obligation to report suspected exploitation, and may place a temporary hold on disbursements while a suspicion is investigated. Suspicious activity reporting obligations run through the banking framework at 31 U.S.C. § 5318.

The federal elder justice framework, including definitions of exploitation, appears at 42 U.S.C. § 1397j and following.

The rules that were supposed to stop the calls

The Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 310, authorized by 15 U.S.C. § 6102, prohibits misrepresentations, requires disclosures, restricts calling hours, and — importantly for fraud — prohibits sellers and telemarketers from accepting payment by cash-to-cash money transfer or by cash reload mechanism, which is precisely the gift-card pattern.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, restricts automated calls, prerecorded messages, and texts without consent, and supports the national Do Not Call registry. It provides a private right of action with statutory damages — one of the few consumer statutes an individual can enforce directly and economically.

And the honest assessment: neither stops fraud. Criminals do not comply with telemarketing rules and are frequently offshore. These statutes govern legitimate marketers and provide remedies against them. The protection against fraud is behavioral, not regulatory, which is why the prevention section below matters more than the enforcement one.

Prevention that actually works

Most advice in this area is a list of things not to do, which is close to useless because the whole design of a scam is to make the ordinary rules feel inapplicable to this one situation. What works is structural — arrangements made in advance that do not require judgment in the moment.

The family code word. Agreed in advance, never shared, used to verify identity in any emergency call. Voice cloning has made this necessary rather than quaint. Choose something nobody would find on social media.

The hard rule: hang up and call back. Not the number they give you. The number you already have. Applied without exception, to banks, agencies, family, and anyone else, this single habit defeats nearly every telephone-based scam.

The trusted contact. Name one at every bank and brokerage. They cannot transact; they can be called if the institution suspects exploitation or cannot reach you. Free, five minutes, and one of the highest-value preventive steps available.

A second signature or a waiting period on large transfers. Many institutions will implement one on request — a hold, a call-back requirement, a dual-authorization rule above a threshold. Ask your bank what they can put on the account.

Credit freezes at all three bureaus, plus the specialty reporting agencies. Free, and reversible in minutes when you need credit.

Multi-factor authentication on email first — because email is the recovery channel for everything else — then on banking, then on everything.

A single person you always call first. Named in advance, agreed by both. "Before I move any money, I call my daughter." This defeats the isolation step, which is the step that makes everything else work.

Do not answer unknown numbers. Legitimate callers leave messages.

Remove yourself from data broker sites, which is where targeting lists come from.

Talk about scams as a family, without shame, and specifically talk about the ones that nearly worked on you. A household where fraud is discussed openly is a household where somebody says something before the second payment.

The intervention problem

The hardest situation in this field is not detecting fraud. It is watching someone you love continue after they have been told.

This happens most often in romance fraud and in advance-fee schemes, and the reason is not stupidity. It is that the victim has been placed in a position where believing you means accepting a devastating loss — of money, of a relationship, of their own judgment. Doubt is cheaper than that, so doubt wins.

What does not work:

• Telling them they are being scammed, repeatedly, in those words
• Anger, ridicule, or "how could you"
• Ultimatums that end the conversation
• Taking control of accounts by force, which usually drives the behavior underground
• Presenting evidence in a way that requires them to admit they were foolish

What sometimes works:

• Asking questions instead of asserting conclusions. "What happens if you ask him to video call right now?" "What would it mean if the money never comes?"
• Making it about the mechanism, not the person. Showing how the specific script works, applied to other people, in the third person.
• Bringing in a neutral third party — a banker, a police officer, a financial advisor, an APS worker. Someone outside the family dynamic.
• Reporting to APS where the person is vulnerable. It is not a betrayal; it is a referral to people who do this professionally.
• Slowing the money down — a hold at the bank, a waiting period, a second signature — without confrontation.
• Staying in the relationship. The single strongest predictor of eventual disengagement is having someone still willing to talk when the person is ready.
• Preparing for the grief. When it breaks, the loss is not primarily financial. Treat it that way.

And a note on capacity: if the behavior reflects genuine cognitive decline rather than an ordinary bad decision, that is a different problem with different tools — evaluation, powers of attorney, supported decision-making, and in some cases guardianship. See the elder law and mental health materials.

When the money is gone

Most fraud losses are not recovered, and pretending otherwise does victims no favors. What remains worth doing:

Report everything, everywhere. IC3 · local police · the state attorney general · the FTC · APS if a vulnerable adult is involved · the Postal Inspection Service if mail was used · the financial institutions on both ends. Reports aggregate, and aggregated reports produce seizures, prosecutions, and occasionally distributions to victims.

Ask about restitution if there is a prosecution. Registering as a victim in a federal or state case is how you appear in the restitution order.

Check for a receivership or a class action. Large frauds frequently produce one, and claims periods have deadlines.

Deal with the tax consequences. Losses may or may not be deductible depending on the circumstances and current law; if a retirement account was drained, there may be a distribution reported that generates a tax bill on money that is gone. Talk to a tax professional — this is a real and cruel second injury.

Protect what remains. Credit freezes, new account numbers, a new email address if the old one was compromised, and a review of every account the scammer had visibility into.

Expect the recovery scam. Victims are re-targeted, frequently by the same organization, with an offer to recover the funds for a fee. Never pay to recover money. Government agencies do not charge, and a "recovery agent" who found you is running the second half of the same operation.

And take the emotional injury seriously. Fraud victims experience shame, isolation, depression, and in some studies elevated mortality. AARP's fraud victim support network and similar programs exist and are free. This is a harm worth treating as a harm.

Five cases

The call at 11:40 p.m.

Bernadette Osei-Achterberg, 78, answered a call from a young man crying. He said "Grandma?" and she said "Tobias?" — supplying the name, which is the whole trick.

He had been in a car accident, had been drinking, was in custody, and was ashamed. A "public defender" came on the line: bail was $9,400, payable today, and there was a gag order — she could not tell his parents until after arraignment.

She went to two banks, withdrew cash, and gave it to a courier who came to her door.

Two days later she called Tobias to see how he was. He was at work in Denver and had never been arrested.

Every element was present: the pretext she completed herself; the false authority; the gag order that isolated her; the urgency; and cash, which is unrecoverable.

What would have stopped it: a family code word, and the hard rule of hanging up and calling Tobias on the number she already had. She had his number. She never dialed it, because the man on the phone had told her not to.

What she did after: filed with local police and IC3; told her family, which was the hardest part and the most important; and set up a code word with all six grandchildren that evening.

The closing that never closed

Fitzgerald Nakamura-Delacroix was three days from closing on a house. He received an email from his title company's escrow officer — correct name, correct signature block, correct file number, referencing the actual closing date — with updated wire instructions and an apology for the change.

He wired $84,000.

The title company's email had been compromised weeks earlier. The scammer had been reading the thread and waiting.

What he did in the first hour, which is why he got some of it back: called his bank and demanded a recall; called the receiving bank directly; called the FBI and filed with IC3 flagged as business email compromise; and notified the title company and his lender.

Roughly 60% was frozen and returned over four months, because the receiving account had not yet been drained and the report was made within hours.

The rule that would have prevented all of it: never wire funds on instructions received by email. Call the escrow officer at a number obtained independently — from the earlier signed engagement letter, not from the email — and read back every digit.

The relationship

Perpetua Ilunga-Whitfield, 64, widowed, met someone on a dating app. Eleven months of daily messages, morning and night. He was an engineer on a contract in Malaysia. He talked about his daughter. He remembered things.

Then: a customs problem with equipment, then a medical emergency, then an investment platform where his gains were displayed and hers grew alongside them.

Over fourteen months she sent $312,000, including a home equity loan and most of an IRA.

Her son had told her it was a scam at month six. She stopped speaking to him about it.

What eventually worked was not the confrontation. It was her banker — who, when she came in to arrange a fourth transfer, sat down with her, did not tell her she was wrong, and asked one question: "Would he be willing to video call right now, while we're sitting here?"

He would not.

Two lessons. The isolation step is the load-bearing one, and the confrontation her son offered strengthened it rather than breaking it. And the intervention that worked came from someone outside the family, asking a question rather than delivering a verdict.

The aftermath was worse than the money: a tax bill on the IRA distribution, a home equity loan on a house she owned outright, and a year of grief that nobody around her knew how to name.

The power of attorney

Cassius Beauvais-Vasquez, 83, gave a durable power of attorney to the daughter who lived nearby and drove him to appointments. Over three years she added herself to his accounts, transferred the house into joint tenancy, sold his car, and moved $190,000 into accounts in her name — while telling her two siblings that their father did not want to see them.

The isolation looked like caregiving. That is the usual presentation.

What the siblings did: requested an accounting from the agent, which a principal or interested party can generally compel; reported to Adult Protective Services; contacted the bank, which had a duty to consider suspected exploitation and placed a hold; and filed a petition to compel accounting and set aside the transfers.

The doctrines that reached it: breach of fiduciary duty by an agent under a power of attorney — self-dealing is a breach, and the burden of justifying transactions falls on the agent; undue influence, with the burden shifted by the confidential relationship plus suspicious circumstances plus an unnatural result; and the state's elder financial exploitation statute, which provided double damages and attorney's fees.

The house was returned to his sole name. Roughly $140,000 was recovered. The agent was removed.

The lesson. A power of attorney is an enormous grant of authority with almost no built-in supervision. Ask for an accounting, name a co-agent or require dual signatures on transfers above a threshold, and put a second family member on the notice list at every institution.

The second scam

Thaddeus Achebe-Groves lost $47,000 to a cryptocurrency investment platform. Four months later he received a call from a "blockchain recovery specialist" who had, they said, traced his funds. Recovery required a $6,800 fee for a "smart contract release."

He paid it. Then a "tax clearance" fee. Then a "wallet reactivation" fee.

Total second loss: $19,400 — to the same organization, working from a victim list they had themselves created.

The rule, without exception: never pay anyone to recover money you lost to fraud. Government agencies do not charge. Legitimate lawyers do not require an upfront "release fee." And anyone who contacts you unsolicited claiming to have traced your funds is running the second half of the operation.

The first hour

If money has just moved, the order matters more than the completeness.

Minutes 0–15

1. Call the sending institution's fraud department. Not the branch. The fraud line, which is on the back of the card and on the website. Say: "I am reporting fraud. Funds left my account at [time] to [recipient]. I am requesting an immediate recall and a freeze on any further transfers."
2. For a wire, use the word "recall." For an ACH, ask about a return. For a card, ask for a chargeback and a new card number.
3. Do not hang up until you have a case or reference number.

Minutes 15–45

4. Call the receiving institution if you know it. They can freeze funds that have not been released.
5. Change the password on your email first, then on financial accounts. Email is the recovery channel for everything else.
6. Revoke remote access if any was granted — disconnect from the internet, uninstall the remote software, and have the machine examined.

Hour 1–24

7. File with the FBI's IC3. For real estate or business wire fraud, say "business email compromise" — there is a rapid-response process and it works best within 72 hours.
8. File a police report. You will need the report number for institutions and insurers.
9. Freeze credit at all three bureaus.
10. Write down everything while you remember it — every call, number, name, time, and exact words used.

Day 2–7

11. Confirm every verbal report in writing and keep proof of the date. Regulation E rights depend on timely notice, and written notice is provable.
12. File with the FTC, the state attorney general, and Adult Protective Services if a vulnerable adult is involved.
13. Review every account the scammer could see, and every account sharing a password.
14. Tell someone. This is a step, not a sentiment — the isolation is what allows the second payment.

The regulatory picture, briefly

Three things are worth knowing about where this is heading.

Payment-app fraud liability is contested. The distinction between an unauthorized transfer, which is protected, and an authorized-but-induced transfer, which generally is not, is where the fight sits. Regulators, legislators, and litigants are all pushing on it, and institutional practices have begun to shift even where the law has not. Press your institution and complain to the regulator if refused — the position taken on a claim today is not necessarily the position that will hold.

Financial institution intervention authority has expanded. A majority of states now permit — and in some cases require — banks and broker-dealers to place a temporary hold on a disbursement when exploitation of a vulnerable adult is suspected, with immunity for good-faith action. This is a genuinely useful development and it is underused because customers do not know to ask for it and staff are not always trained on it.

Trusted contact designations have become standard at brokerages and are increasingly available at banks. They cost nothing, permit no transactions, and give the institution someone to call.

And one that cuts the other way: the tools available to fraudsters have improved faster than the defenses. Voice cloning has made the grandparent scam substantially more effective. Generative text has ended the era in which bad grammar was a reliable signal. Spoofed caller ID and cloned websites are trivial. The old detection heuristics — look for typos, listen for an accent, check the URL — are no longer reliable, which is precisely why the structural defenses in the prevention section matter more than the perceptual ones.

The one thing that has not changed: no legitimate organization asks for gift cards, and no legitimate transaction requires that you not tell anyone.

Scams aimed at particular groups

The architecture is constant; the pretext is tailored. Knowing the version aimed at you makes it visible.

Students and young adults. Fake job offers requiring you to deposit a check and forward part of it — the check bounces days later and the forwarded money is yours. Scholarship and grant fees. Sublet and rental scams for apartments the "landlord" does not own. Fake internship placements. The rule: no legitimate employer sends you money to forward, and no legitimate landlord takes a deposit before you see the unit.

Job seekers. Advance fees for training, equipment, or background checks. Reshipping and money-mule roles, which are criminal exposure for the participant as well as a loss. Interviews conducted entirely by text or chat app. Legitimate employers do not charge you.

Small businesses. Invoice fraud from a spoofed vendor with changed bank details. Fake directory listings and domain renewal notices. Overpayment scams. Business email compromise targeting the person who authorizes payments. The rule: verify any change to payment details by phone, at a number you already had.

Immigrants. Government impersonation with a threat of deportation. Unauthorized practice by "notarios" — a term that in many Latin American countries denotes a lawyer and in the United States does not. Fake fee demands for applications. No immigration agency takes payment by phone, and only lawyers and accredited representatives may give immigration advice.

Veterans. Fake benefit "unlocking" services. Pension poaching, in which an advisor restructures assets for a fee to qualify for a VA pension, frequently to the veteran's detriment. Charity fraud using veterans' organizations' names. VA benefits help is free — from a VA office or an accredited veterans service organization.

Recently bereaved families. Obituaries are public, and they are read by people looking for targets. Fake debts of the decedent. Fake charges relating to the funeral. Fake life insurance "claims processing" fees. The estate pays estate debts, and no legitimate creditor requires payment before probate.

Disaster survivors. Contractors demanding cash deposits. Fake FEMA representatives charging fees — federal disaster assistance is free and never requires a fee. Fake charities. Insurance "adjusters" who are not licensed.

People with medical needs. Fake health insurance. Medicare card "verification" calls. Genetic testing and durable medical equipment schemes, which are Medicare fraud with the beneficiary's number as the product. Medicare does not call to verify your number.

Cryptocurrency investors. Fake exchanges, fake wallets, "recovery" services, giveaway scams that promise to return double, and support impersonation on social platforms. No legitimate support agent asks for a seed phrase — the seed phrase is the money.

Frequently asked questions

I sent money an hour ago. Call the bank or the payment provider now and ask for a recall or a stop. Hours matter, particularly for wires. Then report to the FBI's IC3 and to local police.

Will I get it back? Depends almost entirely on how you paid. Credit card: likely. Debit: often, if fast. Wire: sometimes, if within hours. Gift cards, crypto, cash, payment apps: rarely. Report anyway — reporting drives seizures and occasional freezes.

Should I be embarrassed? No, and embarrassment is the mechanism's ally. Isolation is engineered into every scam precisely because a second person almost always breaks the spell. Tell someone.

They say they'll get my money back for a fee. That is a recovery scam — a second fraud targeting known victims, frequently by the same people. Never pay to recover money. Legitimate agencies do not charge.

Is my parent being exploited? Look for: isolation from other family · a new "friend" or caregiver controlling contact · unpaid bills despite adequate income · sudden changes to a will, deed, beneficiary, or power of attorney · reluctance to speak privately · unexplained withdrawals. Call Adult Protective Services; reports can be anonymous.

Can a bank stop a transfer? Increasingly yes — many states authorize a temporary hold on a disbursement when exploitation is suspected. Ask the institution directly.

What is a trusted contact? A person you authorize your bank or brokerage to call if they suspect exploitation or cannot reach you. They cannot transact. It is free, it takes five minutes, and it is one of the most effective preventive steps available.

Related documents

• Recognizing and Responding to a Scam
• Fraud Response and Elder Exploitation Checklist
• Fraud Response Toolkit
• Identity Theft and Credit Reporting
• Elder Law and Long-Term Care
• Timeshares and Vacation Ownership
• Crime Victims' Rights

Educational only, not legal advice. Elder exploitation statutes, reporting duties, and financial institution hold authority vary by state. If money moved in the last few hours, call the institution before reading further.