Forum Topic – Paul Greenwood

“Financial Elder Abuse Costs $3 Billion a Year. Or Is It $36 Billion?”
That was the headline in a recent Consumer Reports cover article.

Then I read an article in the London Times which referred to the fact that UK police are following up on fewer than one in 100 frauds as cybercrime overwhelms the authorities.

That same article quoted the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau as estimating that three million crimes go unreported each year because banks do not share most card and account fraud with police.

For those of us tasked with either investigating or prosecuting elder financial abuse in the USA, there seems to be a growing sense that the crooks not only have gained the upper hand but are acting more brazenly, aggressively and with a sense of immunity.

We need to reclaim our territory, reverse this trend and flex some prosecutorial muscle to show these scammers and thieves that they cannot continue to do business with impunity.

One way is for the financial institutions to work more closely with Adult Protective Services, local law enforcement and with prosecutors.

In my 20 years of prosecuting financial elder abuse crimes, I have often detected a disconnect between a financial institution and law enforcement.

We need to do better.

And so I would be very interested to hear from other list serve members as to their ideas for improving relations between the finance industry and those of us who are responsible for identifying, apprehending and prosecuting the fraudsters.

For example, do you see the need for more training in your community among bank tellers about the latest scams?

Can the wait time from when a search warrant is served to when the documents arrive at a detective’s desk be improved?

Are your State mandatory reporting laws adequate? Do they cover financial institutions?

Which bank or credit union is making detection of elder financial exploitation a priority?

How do we balance the demand for information against a financial institution’s concern as to the protection of a customer/member’s privacy?

Are there Financial Abuse Specialist Teams [FAST] out there that have proved that better cooperation between law enforcement and the finance sector does lead to tangible results and more prosecutions?

Please share your thoughts with the list serve so we can all benefit.

There has never been a more urgent time for us to stand together to turn back the advancing tide called elder financial exploitation.

– Paul Greenwood