Financial Exploitation
Personal Exploitation
“Personal exploitation” means an act of forcing, compelling, or exerting undue influence over a vulnerable adult causing the vulnerable adult to act in a way that is inconsistent with relevant past behavior, or causing the vulnerable adult to perform services for the benefit of another.
What Would You Do?
A client you work with has occasional visits from a family member. After some of these visits, the client becomes quiet, withdrawn, depressed, or agitated. What would be an appropriate response to this observation? Would you report it as suspected abuse? Why or why not?
Financial Exploitation
“Financial exploitation” means the illegal or improper use of the property, income, resources, or trust funds of a vulnerable adult. Examples include illegally withdrawing money out of another person’s account, forging checks, or stealing things from the house.
Signs of financial exploitation include:
- putting additional names on bank accounts;
- unauthorized ATM withdrawals;
- missing checks;
- sudden changes of a will or other financial documents;
- using or taking a vulnerable adult’s property or possessions without permission;
- unpaid bills;
- telemarketing scams – which use lies, tricks, and threats to get a vulnerable adult to send money;
- unexplained transfer of assets to others (e.g. stocks, bonds, deeds, titles);
- the sudden appearance of previously uninvolved relatives claiming money and/or possessions; or
- the vulnerable adult reports exploitation.