In response to the rising number of seniors being scammed each year in Anne Arundel County, State?s Attorney Frank Weathersbee wants to make seniors savvy about identity theft, caregiver fraud and home-improvement schemes.
His office is joining hands with local churches and fraternal organizations to hold seminars that educate seniors about fraud as part of a nationwide initiative, Communities Against Senior Exploitation. Anne Arundel County is one of 26 sites in the country to have a CASE program.
In cases of fraud and identity theft, “prevention is becoming a lot more important,” Weathersbee said, especially since both are becoming increasingly common.
“Robbing a bank was nice in the 1930s. But the people who are using identity theft get the same amount of money and the risks of getting caught and killed are remote,” he said.
Weathersbee?s office investigates dozens of cases involving senior fraud every year, spokeswoman Kristin Riggin said. Just this month, the office started an investigation of two separate instances of caregiver fraud, Riggin said. In one case, a caregiver coaxed a 90-year-old woman out of tens of thousands of dollars.
According to CASE Program Director Lisa Curtis, older adults make up about 30 percent of the victims of fraud nationally.
“The population is aging,” Curtis said. “Seventy percent of the wealth [in the country] belongs to older adults,” and thieves “go where the money is.”
Weathersbee said he hopes the CASE seminars will arm vulnerable people against thieves. “We want to empower them; we don?t want to scare them,” said Riggin, who was trained to give the seminars. In the first seminar, Riggin advised seniors to make small changes in their lifestyle so they are more protected, such as not leaving checks in outgoing mail in a home mailbox that doesn?t lock. She also handed out free neck wallets and recommended that they wear them to prevent theft.
