These older clients should be reaching out to their trusted advisors when they are approached by strangers eager to be friends and to get too close too soon. That is what happened to a recent victim of elder fraud.

Case Study:

Ellen was 68 years of age. She lived in a small community in her own home. It had been fully paid for years ago. Her husband had died 3 years ago. She was lonely and somewhat isolated. Her daughter lived about 90 minutes away.

A couple befriended Ellen. They were charming and very warm and accepting. They were entertaining. They told stories about their exciting life experiences. Ellen was enthralled.  She and the couple became very close. They told her about some excellent investments. They invited her to invest. She trusted them. She signed some blank cheques for them and some other documents. She did not ask her advisor for help. She did not ask her daughter for advice.

The outcome was catastrophic. The couple were slick fraudsters. They had Ellen sign applications for mortgages. They had her sign some blank cheques.  She did not know their real identities.

Unfortunately, Ellen has severe dyslexia. She can not read or write. She is able to converse. She had always worked but this learning disability has been life long.

The first thing that the crooks did was to wire $100,000 into her bank account and then withdraw it with the blank cheques. They did this a few times to groom her bank account for what followed.  They were also laundering money. Illicit money.

Then Ellen got notices from the 3 mortgage companies demanding payments. The first mortgage was for $280,000.  The fraudsters applied for the mortgage secured by her home which was worth about $850,000.  The mortgage money floated into her account and then was withdrawn by the fraudsters. The bank had seen large transactions that had cleared so nothing was suspected.  The total fraud was over $500,000.  Ellen will likely have to sell her house to pay down the mortgages.

This was a perfect opportunity for Ellen to call her advisor. To read the documents. To uncover the fraud. And to save her estate.

Unfortunately, Ellen did not have an advisor and thus became a victim of elder fraud.  This is a very important role for advisors to take in preventing elder fraud.

The post When Advisors Are Really Needed. Elder Fraud. Raymond Rupert patient advocate appeared first on Raymond Rupert.

The young adult had overdosed on opioids but survived. He was stunned that he lived because he had learned a lot about how to suicide successfully but he had failed.

So there he was not really believing that he was alive.  But 5 days in a locked unit in a psychiatric facility dining on macaroni and cheese and listening to the other patients screaming at the nurses had brought him back to a reality that he did not really like.

So he was able to talk his way out of the locked facility.

Now at home, he could resume his secret activities on the dark web of buying and importing opioids. Unless someone started to monitor what he was doing. No one seemed interested in that. Might be a breach of privacy.

It did not matter that importing narcotics with the intent to distribute was a Federal crime. Didn’t matter. He was invicible, maybe.

So our ultimate job as patient advocates was to help him.

Unfortunately, our plan to introduce an integrated team of experts to provide advice did not fly with his parents.

In fact, there was a dust up with the parents and our team of advocates.

The only way for us to help this young adult was to transfer him to the care of another provider.

This is known as a bridging strategy.  So we offered to allow for a peaceful and seamless transition to the next provider.

And the bridging strategy was used to ultimately help this young adult who otherwise would have been left without a treatment plan or continued to break the law and eventually end up in prison or in the trunk of a car.

Remember, to use or recommend a bridging strategy if you run into a similar type of situation and ultimately want to help the patient.

Raymond Rupert patient advocate.

The post Bridging Strategy When The Case Is Stuck: Raymond Rupert patient advocate appeared first on Raymond Rupert.