Date: Thursday, July 1, 2010
Section: A SECTION
Edition: FINAL
Page: A1
Source: Anika Myers Palm, Orlando Sentinel

Slew of con artists target your elderly relatives

If your parents are 60 or older and live near here, chances are they've been scammed. And the odds aren't looking any better.

"Imagine Florida's [Ben Hill Griffin] Stadium in Gainesville, filled to capacity, every 11 days for the next 30 years," said Laura Lang, senior-programs coordinator for the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Although it's difficult to get an accurate number of actual victims, the state anti-crime group Seniors Vs. Crime says most seniors can expect to be targeted by some sort of fraud attempt. The numbers are so stunning that government experts and those in the legal and health-care fields are sounding an alarm.

The problem is important because as baby boomers age and there are more seniors, the number of victims is expected to rise, the experts say.

It happens to young seniors and the most elderly. It can come in the form of identity theft, door-to-door frauds, lottery scams, investment offers and solicitations for charity groups. Seniors are especially vulnerable to fraud because they generally take people at their word.

"They're a group of individuals that believe 'If I say something, I will stand by what I say,' " Lang said. "But that's not the world we live in."

Take the Holly Hill man who two years ago believed a phone solicitation that promised him big profits if he marketed financial services for an Internet company based in Arizona. He gave the company his credit-card number. Soon thereafter, he was solicited by another Arizona firm.

Several weeks later, the retired teacher called his daughter. His credit-card bills and bank statements showed he was out $16,000.

"He didn't even have a computer," Sanford's Mary Meza said of her father. She said she was able to recover $11,000 of his money.

Her father, 84, now lives in an assisted-living facility in Sanford, where he still receives solicitations. That, Meza said, upsets her.

Beware strange calls

Telemarketing operations are notorious for targeting seniors. And they can be quite sophisticated.

The con comes when a telemarketer calls a home and convinces an elderly person to purchase something, an item or service the person usually doesn't need. Meanwhile, the caller can ask perceptive questions that solicit specific information: names of children, grandchildren, neighbors and pets.

Experts say these details often get built into a database profile so that the next time the telemarketer calls — and if successful the first time, there will be a next time — the senior is much easier to manipulate. The cycle can repeat, sometimes several times a day.

"Seniors will fall for products being offered on TV for three easy payments," said Marsha Muller, owner of Windermere-based Assisting Florida Seniors.

Several other types of fraud have snared seniors in Florida and across the country. Some are sophisticated, others not so much.

More than 2,000 Florida seniors lost money to Ponzi-scheme investment guru Bernie Madoff, according to Seniors Vs. Crime, a special project created by Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth.

A newer fraud is the Granny Scam. It involves someone calling a senior to say that he or she is a relative out of the country — or involved in an accident or stranded somewhere without any money. The scammer follows up by asking Grandma to wire funds.

"This week, I've gotten two calls from family members who said Mom or Dad had gotten a call from one of those Granny Scams," said Allison Bryant, statewide elder-abuse-prevention coordinator for the state Department of Elder Affairs. AARP warns that some door-to-door salesmen — and saleswomen — have targeted communities of older people in Missouri.

They claim, illegally, to represent the federal government while selling supplemental Medicare policies to seniors. The government isn't in the policy sales business.

Children of seniors should also take notice if they hear about their parents receiving change-of-address forms from the U.S. Postal Service if they weren't requested. Thieves sometimes use the forms to receive seniors' mail as part of identity-theft schemes, according to AARP.

Lottery scam popular

Locally, a large number of people — not just seniors — are being duped by lottery scams.

"We have a huge problem right now with a lottery scam being operated out of Jamaica," said Ed Moffitt, who supervises Central Florida postal inspectors. "Victims are being solicited through the mail."

Those ensnared often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on phone calls to speak with lottery "caseworkers" in Jamaica. The workers then bilk players for money to pay for taxes or fees related to their alleged winnings, Moffitt said.

Experts say a number of conditions make seniors targets for these frauds. First, many older people spend more time at home, and they crave more contact with others. So phone calls and visits are sometimes more welcome. The more independent the senior, the better odds a con artist has at repeated success. Elderly parents tend not to have their adult children listed on their bank and credit-card accounts, which keeps personal finances in the dark. And people who get taken are often too embarrassed to admit it to someone else.

Getting taken in these schemes isn't necessarily a byproduct of age, though. Many times young family members of seniors don't catch on to scams, either.

"It just seems to me in almost every situation, family members arrive on the scene after lots and lots of money has been spent," Muller said.

How to help

Muller advises families to look carefully at the people they permit around senior family members or people they hire to care for older loved ones.

One security measure is for families to set up a familywide password for identification purposes.

Another way — an especially effective one, experts say — to keep seniors from being defrauded is for a family member to file paperwork seeking legal guardianship.

But that's neither cheap nor easy. It can cost thousands of dollars, according to Carolyn Sawyer, an Orlando attorney who handles elder-law cases.

"The bottom line is guardianship should be the least restrictive, to leave as much independence as possible for the person," Sawyer said. Seniors can help themselves.

One way is to be wary of giving too much information about themselves to strangers, experts say. Local law-enforcement agencies also sometimes offer classes to help seniors recognize crime that may particularly affect them.

About 40 people in Central Florida also are involved with Seniors Vs. Crime (seniorsvscrime.com, 407-571-8462), which teaches seniors about frauds that target them and gives them the tools to avoid becoming victims, said Sandi Jernigan, manager of the Seminole County Seniors vs. Crime office.

But even being aware of the problem won't always prevent seniors from falling victim to it.

Sheri Dickmann is one of the owners of GuardianSource, an Orlando senior-services organization. Not long ago, a contractor took more than $1,000 from Dickmann's 94-year-old grandmother in Altamonte Springs to do some work on the woman's house.

Then he failed to finish the job. He hasn't paid back all the money, Dickmann said.

"Right underneath my nose," she said, "it happens to one of my own family members."