PT-LawMom

Have you read these stories about elderly people who go into care facilities or lose a spouse and start receiving in-home care and then get abused by the very people who are entrusted with their care? I’m not talking about physical or sexual abuse, which is bad enough, but about identity theft, which is far more insidious and apparently much, much more difficult to straighten out because most of the burden is on the victim and it is so hard to prove. In the case of the elderly, who often do not have the necessary paperwork in place to let others speak on their behalf in financial matters, it can be even more complicated to handle these things.

When one of my parents was rushed to the hospital recently, I made sure to get their wallet out of the hospital that first night before there was any alone time with anyone who might be able to swipe information. I don’t know why that occurred to me. It could be because I heard a horrible story when I was volunteering at a recent pro bono legal clinic or because a coworker had his checks stolen and used for several months in small amounts before he realized it was happening. But ultimately my parent was glad to have the info safe and sound at home.

Little did we know that home is not always a safe place. This week, in the midst of other stressful events with my family and continuing recovery for my parent, they found out that a large amount (almost 5 figures) was missing from their bank account. For a variety of reasons, my ill parent had to be the one to deal with the bank this week and just thought it was a case of some stranger stealing from them. What we could never have expected… what no one would have imagined… is that we would find out that it was a close family member who took the info knowing that 1) my grandparents died last year and passed on inheritance so, for the first time, there’s actually that kind of money in the bank (although, fortunately, most is invested) and 2) because my parents were both stressed and one was ill, they probably wouldn’t notice right away.

What is most shocking about this, and the reason I’m telling the tale, is that this family member lives in another state and was still able to do this. The bank never called until my parent noticed the missing funds! After receiving the debit card info by phone from my parent to pay for something small, he somehow found someone shady to help him make a new debit card with a the info and a fake name that he could use to rack up almost $10k in charges on things like jewelry and other similarly trivial, unnecessary items. I don’t know what my parents will do about this because I think the remedies are either prosecution or payment of the missing amount. I seriously doubt they will go the prosecution route due to the close relationship with this family member, even though this is such a horrible violation of trust.

Talk to your parents about protecting themselves. Encourage them not to give their debit card info out over the phone. What my parents found out is that they would have been much more protected had they used a credit card and, if the goal was to avoid racking up debt, just paid the credit card company immediately. The bank told them they can get a bank credit card, use that, and immediately transfer money from their checking account to the credit card to cover large or small purchases. In addition, the bank also encourages people to use online banking instead of paper checks. It is just too easy for people to use your routing/account number to steal from you and it takes several billing cycles to get that money back. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I couldn’t afford that kind of hit. Protect yourselves and protect your family members. Hopefully unlike our case it won’t be your own family doing this to you.