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Elder Financial Abuse: Insights and Solutions with Guests Andrea Higgens and Patty Presta

• NEACH • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Today, June 15, is National Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

The Wrestling Payments podcast was started to discuss "wrestling" with payment topics. Topics like technology implementation and AI, but perhaps we've become so numb to the problems of Elder Financial Abuse and Human Trafficking, that the issues have faded into the background. I ask the Industry, how can we do better?

In this episode of Wrestling Payments, Joe Casali talks with Andrea Higgens, a Criminal Elder Abuse Investigator from the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, and Patty Presta, Director of Education at NEACH. Andrea shares her 25 years of law enforcement experience, focusing on elder financial abuse and the critical role of financial institutions in preventing these crimes. Patty adds her insights from decades of advocacy and education on elder abuse prevention.

Andrea discusses the importance of suspicious activity reports (SARs) and how they can help law enforcement track and prevent elder abuse. She emphasizes the need for financial institutions to educate their frontline staff on identifying and reporting suspicious activities. Patty highlights the significance of cross-reporting to Adult Protective Services (APS) to ensure timely interventions.

Throughout the conversation, Andrea, Patty, and Joe explore real-life examples of how collaborative efforts between financial institutions and law enforcement have successfully protected elders from financial exploitation. This episode sheds light on the complexities of elder financial abuse and the continuous efforts needed to safeguard vulnerable seniors.

GUESTS AT A GLANCE


  • Patty Presta, Director of Education
  • NEACH
  • LinkedIn
  • Noteworthy: Passionate advocate for elder abuse prevention since 1994


KEY INSIGHTS
The Role of Financial Institutions in Elder Abuse Prevention

Andrea Higgens emphasizes the crucial role financial institutions play in preventing elder financial abuse. She highlights the importance of suspicious activity reports (SARs) and cross-reporting to Adult Protective Services (APS). By identifying unusual transactions and collaborating with law enforcement, banks and credit unions can help protect vulnerable seniors. Andrea stresses the need for frontline staff to ask open-ended questions and be vigilant in detecting signs of abuse. She also suggests financial institutions host educational events for customers and their families to increase awareness and preventive measures. Empowering bank employees with knowledge and tools to identify potential abuse can make a significant difference in safeguarding elders from financial exploitation.

The Power of Cross-Reporting to APS

Andrea discusses the impact of cross-reporting suspicious activities to Adult Protective Services (APS). When financial institutions notice unusual transactions, they can trigger an investigation by APS, leading to timely interventions. She shares a success story where a bank's prompt cross-reporting helped uncover a significant financial abuse case. The abuser had liquidated large sums of money and taken ownership of the victim's home. Thanks to the bank's quick action and collaboration with APS and law enforcement, the victim's assets were recovered, and the abuser was

WRESTLING PAYMENTS episode 2.10:
Elder Financial Abuse: Insights and Solutions with Guests Andrea Higgens and Patty Presta


Andrea Higgens: [00:00:00] I think the one resource that I would love to see financial institutions utilize even more proactively than they do are suspicious activity reports. those are really a gold mine for people like me in law enforcement, to, you know, be able to see like a history maybe there are multiple suspicious activity reports that, tell a story basically.

 but then also just for financial institutions to consider. If you're submitting a suspicious activity report in a situation that involves an older adult, consider also cross reporting to APS

[00:01:00] 

Joe Casali: And welcome to Wrestling Payments. I'm pretty excited today. We have some special guests. If you recall, Patty Presta is back. We've had a great conversation about elder abuse, and I'm joined as well, and I'm going to ask her to introduce herself, but when Inspector Andrea Higgens from San Mateo,

Andrea Higgens: Correct.

Joe Casali: San Mateo, California.

If you could just introduce yourself, just so the audience knows.

Andrea Higgens: Sure, Joe. Thank you so much for having me as well. My name is Andrea Higgens and I'm an Elder Independent Adult Abuse Investigator with the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office. That's a fancy way of saying that essentially I'm a detective and my specialization is, is elder abuse cases, predominantly financial abuse, but I investigate all forms of elder abuse.

Any information that I'm providing do not constitute the legal interpretation guidance or advice of the San Mateo County district attorney's office. Any opinions or views stated are my [00:02:00] own. 

Joe Casali: And, just to follow up on that one. I'm, I'm always curious. How did you get there? Where did you come from?

Andrea Higgens: Well, I have been in law enforcement for almost 25 years. I started out my career at one of our local police agencies as a patrol officer and detective. And about 14 years ago, I moved over to the district attorney's office as an investigator. And, about two years into my work at the DA's office, I was actually investigating annuities fraud. 

And many of the abuse victims in my annuities fraud cases were older adults. And that's what kind of got me on the path of learning more about how financial abuse is perpetrated against older adults. And that really opened up the, the world of, of elder financial abuse for me.

Joe Casali: And we appreciate that. because we know what a big problem this is. Patty, you want to remind folks who you are?

Patty Presta: I started with NEACH back in 1994, 1997. I knew Joe back then when Joe [00:03:00] had absolutely not one gray hair in his head, nor did I. then I, I left in 2004, went to work for the West Coast for the RPA up there. That's actually where I met Andrea at a, I believe we met at an elder conference. we befriended each other and we did a lot of work together.

And then I just rejoined, NEACH and others beginning of this year. And so my, my passion for elder abuse really started as a true candy striper when they actually wore the cute pink pin and what, you know, pink and white pinafores. I worked for a New England rehab in Woburn, which was created by Buddy LaRue who owned the Red Sox.

So I met Petrocelli and Collier Strumski and the injured guys that would come into rehab. from then I became a CNA. I worked for a little bit, you know, as a young girl, but always volunteered. And then when I started at West Pay, I met Jennifer Dwayne, who now works with CFPB. I love, I've gone around to many church groups in over 60 communities, still [00:04:00] trying to ramp that up now that I'm living in Utah, get some folks out there and, and trying to just protect our elders.

Joe Casali: Excellent. I'm a big movie guy and I think there's a movie coming out. that depicts an elder abuse where the grandson calls and needs bail money. But I think that movie's coming out with a, with a pretty popular actress and 

Patty Presta: Oh, interesting.

Joe Casali: talking about that, I know we're here to, to kind of recognize national elder abuse and I think it's, is it international

Patty Presta: Yeah, it's, it's National Elder Day and it's June 14th and that's really why we're doing this just to remind everybody, hey, this is a special day and what are we doing for our elders? Yeah.

Joe Casali: And at this point, I'm sort of going to step back before before the session began. you guys were talking about, actual really good results in partnerships between financial institutions and law enforcement. Can you just kind of riff a little bit on, on, good [00:05:00] things you've seen and bad things you've seen?

And Patty, if you have any redirect on that question.

Patty Presta: Yeah, you know, Joe, I'm sure that Andrea can tell more stories because she is in the fields day to day. I do have a story I want to share. And those that were at our conference a few weeks ago, heard me, tell the story, but, Andrea and I have a really good friend named Paul Greenwood. He's a district attorney.

He prosecuted elder crimes 27, 28 years out in California. He now is a consultant for AARP. So he shared a story with us, he has a cross street neighbor that's in her 90s and his wife and he kind of take care of her, look after her. So she called him up and said, could you do me a favor and drive with me to Walmart?

I've got $17,000 in cash. I need to buy some prepaid cards. So he immediately said, I'm walking over to the house now. So he walked over to the house. He said, what's going on? Well, the tax, I owe back taxes [00:06:00] and this gentleman called and this whole thing. So she drove by herself to her bank, withdrew the seven, it was 17 or 18.

I think it was 18, drew the cash out. And walked out of the bank and then calls Paul to say, well, you assist me to Walmart and show me how I buy all these. So he said, let's take a drive first to your bank. And he went in there and said, I want to speak to a manager. And I'm, he said, I want someone to explain to me how this happened.

How you did not ask her any open ended question behind closed doors. You let her walk out of the bank at 94 with a pocketbook with that kind of money. Like Andrea, I was like appalled that I thought our members, our banks and credit unions would know way better than that. How does that happen? You know, what, where's the [00:07:00] disconnect?

 Yeah,

Andrea Higgens: of how challenging the situation is and how hidden it is, and how grateful I am that that neighbor has somebody like Paul to take her back to the bank and say, hey, what happened here? but 1st, I just want to point out that, you know, I, I feel like banks are, by and large.

Doing amazing work in this area. I feel like there are thousands and thousands of people every day who don't walk out of their credit union or their bank with that pocket book full of cash as a result of some scam call. and I also just have a ton of respect for the fact that those frontline tellers You know, it's a struggle for them because I've talked to some of those folks who have reported these kinds of issues to law enforcement and, you know, for them, it's an issue of privacy.

It's an issue of, you know, I did ask open ended questions and this person seemed to me, based on those questions that, you know, they knew what they were doing. So, even though this wasn't consistent with their, their financial [00:08:00] patterns, you know, we didn't feel like we had a way to stop the transactions from going through.

So I think there are lots of complexities and I, and I certainly don't want to, you know, negate those positive actions that the banks are doing. But I think it's really just a good story to illustrate that we all have work to do in this arena. And if I could give any message to financial institutions across the board, it would be to You know, continue their efforts, continue those algorithms that are going to throw up those flags and say, whoa, this is not a 94 year old person is not going to walk into a bank under normal circumstances and pull out that kind of cash, you know, and really empower those frontline workers, educate them about those open ended questions.

How do you, instead of saying, hey, who's taking advantage of you? Because those older adults, if they're being taken advantage of, will have been schooled and groomed by the abusers, by the scammers to say, okay, when the bank asks you this question, here's [00:09:00] what you tell them. Here's how you get out from underneath that.

But by asking questions like. You know, what's the purpose of this? Who benefits from this money? you know, what kinds of things are you doing that will, you know, be positive for your financial well being, working collaboratively with law enforcement, not being afraid to reach out and say, Hey, could we have an officer or a deputy come out speak with this person?

Because we're a little out of our depth and we don't want to let this transaction go through, Really aggressive cross reporting of, you know, hey, this felt we had to let this transaction go through, but this didn't feel right to us. We'd like somebody to check on this person. So, really empowering those frontline people in the financial institutions, whether it's somebody in a call center, whether it's somebody who's an actual teller.

We just all have a lot of work to do, in that regard, but also really just putting out that proactive messaging to your customers and their family members hosting, you know, online or in person events where [00:10:00] you educate those folks about how to, you know, maybe put a contact person on that account. Hey, I'm concerned about this older adults actions, but you know, I have this contact person that I can call who is, you know, a trusted other.

That I could say, Hey, what do you think about this? You know, do you feel like this is something that really should be allowed to go through, you know, really increasing the, knowledge of those kinds of systems and the use of those kinds of systems.

Patty Presta: You know, Andrea, it's funny you said that contact. I was surprised at how few financial institutions are using those. So, let's pretend Joe is my, my dad. He's in his 90s. I'm his daughter. I'm in my 60s. It's easier said than done. So I might not even have an account with Joe. Joe's got his account at Bank A and I've got my account XYZ, but Joe has put me, he's got a couple of daughters and he's put myself on, maybe it's the primary where they can send me, I'm working on a, I'm working with a company that everybody knows who they are, but I [00:11:00] can't, can't tell you who they are right now because the product's not out yet, that is creating this incredible software to protect.

So I might be primary. I get a text saying your dad is at the bank and wants to withdraw 18, 000. Yes or no? Absolutely not. Or he's trying to wire money to Croatia. I shut that down. Maybe you're the other daughter, but you're kind of the redheaded stuck child. Dad doesn't trust you as much. So you're the secondary.

 so maybe you have rights to see what's going on, but not able to make decisions. Right? Then Joe, it's like we talked about. Well, you know, how do we know that the granddaughter isn't the one abusing or the daughter that's not abusing? So what kind of background checks should the FI do? we, you know, obviously criminal check.

And I was telling this, I said on this board and I was saying, credit check. Well why would we care? Because I have a score of 320. I am poor. I am the perfect person [00:12:00] to abuse my grandmother, who's quite comfortable. So, you know, it's, it's, it's something that's important. I think more and more institutions should implement it, but there are, there are, you know, things that there are challenges to make sure that those trusted contact are really trusted.

And Andrea, you always talked about that. Cognitive decision making right? You know, a lot of I think elders are getting swooped in with the I. T. scam is a big one. I'm my mom is very computer savvy and this popped up on my screen wasn't 2 days after I started back at niche, you know, The whales, the whistles are blowing, IT, your computer's going to crash, call the state app.

My mom knows she's pretty, cause anything she calls me and I'm like, no mommy don't, you know, but people will fall for that. Right. Um, and then sweetheart scams and, and, and a lot of times institutions can get in the middle of don't tell me what to do. This is my grandson. It's not your money. I want to give this money to [00:13:00] my grandson.

And, and it, it puts, especially when it's family members, it puts the institutions in a very tough position. a lot of sweethearts games. So a lot of these elders are being abused. Not, they're not even in that stage where they're not that, what is the term you use that cognitive,

Andrea Higgens: impairment.

Patty Presta: right? a lot of times it's the younger elders that are being taken advantage of, but it's a more challenge when they start to have in their decision making.

You know,

Andrea Higgens: Absolutely. And it's so challenging for financial institutions because, you know, they're not neuropsychologists. They don't come to their job as a bank teller with, you know, and just like us in law enforcement, you know, most patrol officers that go out to investigate an allegation or an APS cross report, they don't have the background and training to necessarily ask all of the right questions.

You know, we have a lot of situations where. You know, officers will say something like, well, this person could remember who the president of the United States was and, you know, who [00:14:00] the, you know, what day it was, or remembered that I, you know, spoke with them a month ago. But unfortunately, the way our brains work, unless we're asking financial questions, we are not assessing financial capacity.

Capacity is really specific to. What it is we're, we're assessing for. So, you know, it creates a lot of challenges and, you know, there is no perfect system. So I think part of, you know, what I really advocate for is that we all just keep learning, that we all keep striving to do a better job of protecting folks, but also understanding that if we.

You know, if we have the resources and we're still in full possession of our cognitive abilities as an older adult, we can do whatever, you know, really dumb thing that we want to do with our money. even though the people around us are saying, you know, that's a terrible idea. you know, that, that's the right that we've earned as, as older adults.

And so that's really, I think where the challenge comes in Patty, in a lot of those situations, especially with families.

Joe Casali: So I have an [00:15:00] observation. And then a question. So, just an observation. This is not a, you know, we teach about payments. We teach about, you know, how payments work. And so many times a payment is like, has a beginning and an end. has, it's this week's payroll. Okay. Let's get the payroll ready.

Let's send the payroll out. Okay. The payroll all went out. Duh. challenges, they never end. There's always a different tweak on it. There's always a different angle. I think the, for me, the whole your, your grandchild is arrested and needs bail money is pretty new as far as, a challenge. But here's the, the, the comment, and I, as a payments weirdo, you think about these things while you're driving to work.

If any 

Patty Presta: Let's call you, a geek, not a weirdo.

Joe Casali: geek, weirdo, nerd, all of those things. If any time, if we could teach people at any time, if they [00:16:00] feel panic about something, someone saying on the phone, your kid's in jail, you owe taxes. I overpaid you. I'm going to get fired because I overpaid you. You need to put money on cards and send the cards back to me.

Anytime that fear, if we could say, wait, hold on. Really? Is this really happening? Is this a real thing? I think it'd be great, but again, it's always evolving. The next victim is right down the road. So that was just a

Andrea Higgens: Mm hmm.

Joe Casali: here's the question. So in celebration of Elder Awareness Day, do you have any victories, any success stories you could share?

Rather than the horror story part of it, Who got caught? Who got saved? anything like

Patty Presta: Yeah.

Andrea Higgens: that, that I've shared with Patty in the past and the hero of the story is a financial institution that very promptly cross [00:17:00] reported, you know, some really inconsistent financial transactions, large withdrawals of cash. That we're being facilitated by somebody who had a power of attorney.

And I think that's one of the really, you know, kind of the layers of complexity that we've talked about with these transactions where, you know, somebody comes into the bank and says, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm a co signer on the account. Here's my power of attorney. And, you know, we're, we're taking all this money.

We're liquidating all this money. but the bank was like, you know, something's not right here. We can't refuse the transactions, but they cross reported it to adult protective services. I work very closely as. law enforcement investigator with adult protective services. And I act as sort of a hub or a resource for, you know, complex cases or cases that come in that they're like, you know, how do we address this?

How do we collaborate with law enforcement? So we actually got a deputy public guardian, which is a, a, an APS social worker who helps out with cases where an older adult may not have capacity anymore. And somebody may need to step in take over because [00:18:00] the person who is acting as that person's agent.

is our suspected abuser, basically. So we collaborated and Adult Protective Services went out to the home of our victim with local law enforcement and knocked on the door and said, Hey, things are not looking great from the bank. And the suspected abuser was really taken aback and just didn't really have good any excuses.

And finally said, I liquidated all of that money. And she goes into her bedroom and pulls You know, 50, 000, 60, 000 in cash that was literally in a shoebox under her bed. And that was really sort of the catalyst for a much larger investigation by my office and the local law enforcement agency, where we realized that this abuser had also Taken title to the victim's home, which was paid off and free and clear.

And now our suspect owned that home outright. Our victim had severe dementia and had for many years. The suspect [00:19:00] was well aware and was a caregiver, so was aware of the dementia and had really just taken advantage of it and had put paperwork in front of her and had her sign. You know, oh, yeah, here's a quick claim deed.

Here's power of attorney. The victim had no idea and had no intention to have done any of those things. You know, she intended for her estate to be, divided up amongst her family members, not to go to this, the suspect who was a family member. so, you know, really like that type of story is so.

Powerful and illustrating that, you know, financial institutions play such a crucial role, even if they're not able to stop those kinds of transactions, putting the pieces together for us on the law enforcement side and getting a cross report out to APS in a timely manner. And then, you know, be willing to cooperate quickly with law enforcement when we serve you with a search warrant for, for bank records so that we can really see the totality of what's taking place.

It's, it's [00:20:00] usually, you know, like, those transactions are just the tip of the iceberg. There's usually so much more that we find when we go into those records. So I think that's really a huge success story. And that suspect actually went to state prison, was not somebody that ever had a criminal record before, but our criminal justice system recognized that this was egregious.

This is a person who had a position of trust and love and care within that, that family relationship. Who had absolute knowledge that this person had no idea what she was doing. the victim had no idea what she was doing when she signed over title and, and, you know, gifted all of this money to, to this caregiver.

So really financial institutions are absolutely the hero in so many of the stories, the unsung stories, um, of a financial elder abuse.

Joe Casali: So, really,

Patty Presta: story. That's a

Joe Casali: yeah, two really quick kind of redirects.

Andrea Higgens: Yeah.

Joe Casali: First part, you know, in that, in that argument about, I'm independent, I don't need you to tell me what to do, versus, hey, there's something bad going on. [00:21:00] You could have equally gone out there and say, yeah, they are liquidating. They're moving to a different state.

They need liquidate everything. But that was not the case. Is it common, and I'm on the edge of this, Patty's, you know, elbow deep in all of this. Is that common that a financial institution has the contact at Adult Protective Services that would know to say, let's give them a call? Is that common? Do all banks do that?

Or is that something they need to develop?

Andrea Higgens: So I don't know that I can speak to all financial institutions in terms of them having like a person at Adult Protective Services, but the process that's in place in California where I work is that, as mandated reporters, financial institutions, um, they Essentially fill out an online form and it's pretty automatic.

It is, you know, if X, Y, and Z are present, you, you shoot that, you know, you don't have to know that a crime has occurred or even suspect that there's a crime. You just feel like something's not [00:22:00] right in the situation. you know, maybe somebody comes into your bank and they're disheveled and they, they don't smell clean and things look like they've really changed with that person based on your.

Experience with them. It doesn't have to be criminal, but in the situation that that the scenario I just described, you know, hey, these transactions are inconsistent. we can't stop the transactions, but we feel like something's not right here. Sending over a cross report to adult protective services triggers, you know, basically a social worker getting involved.

Reaching out to the bank, asking more questions, reviewing the documentation, the banks typically provide some substantiation, that goes along with that cross report and that's really just the start of the process. So, the good news is they don't have to have an individual. contact person that they pick up.

All they need to know is here's how I submit the form online and then make myself available to adult protective services when they call to follow up. you know, we also really encourage financial institutions that [00:23:00] if it's what we call an in progress crime, somebody walks into the bank with an older adult that they reach out to law enforcement immediately and have a law enforcement person come out because sometimes that gives us the opportunity to really.

Get an intervention in the moment before that money is gone and really realize like, oh, there is. Somebody needs to step into the situation right now, because sometimes that's the case. Not always, but sometimes that really is the case. So in California, it's either you cross report to Adult Protective Services, or you cross report to law enforcement.

So, you know, most financial institutions will cross. Report to Adult Protective Services. and typically that's a completely, you know, appropriate way to get the ball rolling. but there is also that ability for banks to reach out and, and have law enforcement respond in the moment to intervene in a situation like that.

Joe Casali: at this point, I think we're going to wind it up. I usually give it, I usually just give it to you if you have any parting [00:24:00] words. But I'd like to suggest that there are any resources people need to be aware of, as well as any. Final words.

Andrea Higgens: So I think the one resource that I would love to see financial institutions utilize you know, even more proactively than they do are suspicious activity reports. those are really a gold mine for people like me in law enforcement, to, you know, be able to see like a history of, you know, maybe there are multiple suspicious activity reports that, you know, tell a story basically.

 but then also just for financial institutions to consider. If you're submitting a suspicious activity report in a situation that involves an older adult, consider also cross reporting to APS because sometimes we lose that ability, that insight, because, you know, SARs are not proactive. I have to go looking for them as a law enforcement officer.

But if you're filing a SAR, an elder financial exploitation SAR, I would just strongly encourage institutions To consider cross reporting in those circumstances, [00:25:00] even if you don't know for sure that there's something that's going to end up being criminal, giving somebody like an APS social worker, an opportunity to get visibility into that situation is can sometimes really be preventive.

We can play a role of prevention as a collaborative team, between the financial institution, adult protective services and law enforcement, and prevent an older adult from being taken advantage of. So thank you guys so much for the opportunity to share some information. I hope it's helpful for the folks that are, are viewing this and, and thank you folks for the work that you do.

Patty Presta: And 

Joe Casali: Andrea. Patty, any, how about you?

Patty Presta: my, my parting words would be, remember as Andrea said, you don't have to prove it. If something just doesn't feel right, reach out to APS. If that person does look like they're being physically abused, call 911. You know, if they look like they're in danger and reward your staff.

If a frontline girl catches something like this, reward them. Whether it's a gift card to Amazon or the president's frontline parking for a month, right outside the front door, [00:26:00] you know, I know it's their job, but reward, reward because they, because we all have moms and dads and grandparents that we need to protect.

And thanks Joe for having us on today.

Joe Casali: Oh, thank you. This topic is so, uh, it's, you know, it scares me a little bit because it's so real, so pervasive, so every day. And there's, you know, there's no, if we just fix this, it'll be all fixed. They always find another way, another angle. Um, so it does scare me a little, but I'm, I'm happy to have experts on.

Thank you.

Patty Presta: Thank you everybody. It was nice again, Andrea.

Andrea Higgens: You too, Patty.

Patty Presta: Thank you.

​[00:27:00]