MORE THAN 92,000 people over age 60 reported losses to fraud totaling $1.7 billion in 2021, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. That represented a 74% increase in losses from the year before.
With the population of older Americans growing, the need to protect this vulnerable population is more critical than ever. Enter the concept of a trusted contact.
The trusted contact has its origin in a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rule issued in March 2020.
IT ALL STARTED WITH a purchase alert. With so much account hacking, we have alerts on our phones for every new purchase, so we can immediately respond if there’s an unauthorized transaction. What we didn’t know was that disputing charges can be so Kafkaesque.
My wife Jiab asked if I had just purchased anything online from Walmart. I had not. There were two suspect charges, each for about $50, simultaneously charged to our Chase and Capital One credit cards.
OUR COMMUNITY HAS a Facebook-like online forum called Nextdoor. I tend to ignore the posts, which usually involve things like items for sale and new restaurant openings. But a recent post caught my eye—because it was from the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds.
The article said Pennsylvania’s Attorney General had initiated a lawsuit against a realty company for deceptive practices targeting elderly, low-income and minority homeowners. The realty company was offering a “Homeowner Benefit Program” that gives homeowners anywhere from $400 to $1,000 upfront to lock into a contract.
I’VE BEEN AWAY FROM the HumbleDollar community for a while. Jiab and I are working on a new book about media literacy, examining the effects of social media influencers on youth consumerism. It will teach kids about responsible web use and how to avoid the traps of the online world.
I’ve learned a lot myself, including lessons that apply both online and IRL, short for “in real life.” As part of our research,
WHEN I WORKED FOR a personal finance magazine in the mid-1990s, I wrote a story about conmen who met their marks in internet chat rooms devoted to stock investing. One of the slickest tricksters went by the name of Josef von Habsburg. He told people he was descended from Austrian royalty.
In researching the story, I called the police in von Habsburg’s hometown of Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The local police knew him as Josef Meyers and said he was about as royal as you or me.
WHERE WOULD WE BE without the internet, social media, and our smartphones and smartwatches? Can you remember a time when you couldn’t look up the answer to a trivia question at a cocktail party? I love answering the phone on my watch. It takes me back to Dick Tracy.
There I was, going along happily in my online universe—until I got an email from McAfee’s identity theft protection service alerting me that my phone number had been found on the dark web.
GOOD PARENTS WARN their children about predators who look to take advantage of them. By the same token, good adults should warn and safeguard their elderly parents, as well as the other seniors they care for.
We all use our electronics for accessing information. We sometimes forget the information highway is two-way, and nefarious people use those lines of communication to get to the vulnerable. And it isn’t just about hacking online accounts. Often,
WE’VE ALL HEARD of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which compile our all-important credit reports. But have you heard of ChexSystems?
ChexSystems generates reports on bank customers, typically using banking history from the past five years to assess the risk that customers pose to their banks. Those risks are reflected in blemishes on a consumer’s banking history, such as overdrafts and unpaid fees. In some instances, ChexSystems warns banks about potential fraud.
ON MONDAY, MAY 2, I logged onto my Chase bank account—and discovered my balance was $992.43, many thousands of dollars less than I expected. My first thought: I’m going to get hit with a low-balance fee.
That, alas, should have been the least of my worries.
I clicked through to see the account details, and discovered that check No. 1126 had been made out to Milton Cherry for $7,000. But none of the writing on the check was mine,
IF YOU GOOGLE “best business books of all time,” you’ll find Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich at or near the top of the search results, ahead of works by luminaries such as Ben Graham and Jack Bogle.
Truly helpful business analysis requires the reader to pay attention to evidence backed by boring data, a formula that’s hard to sell to the masses. Books like Think and Grow Rich or Jim Collins’s Good to Great offer the reader questionable assumptions built on anecdotal evidence,
I’VE BEEN IN LOVE with index funds for a long time, especially for a reason that doesn’t get enough attention. Lots of financial writers correctly praise index funds for their low costs, low turnover, low drama, massive and easy diversification, and numerous other good attributes.
But the No. 1 reason you should love index funds is they will keep you out of the hands of pushy, unethical financial salespeople. If Wall Street knows you’re committed to index funds,
IN AN ARTICLE last year, I wrote about the importance of strong online account security wherever you keep your savings and investments. I shared habits that should help you avoid the potentially huge financial losses caused by a cybercrime. I also urged readers to weigh a company’s commitment to security when choosing a home for their money.
I’d like to give kudos to Bank of America for providing a good example of this commitment.
THIS IS NOT MY favorite topic. But it’s a necessary one these days—when a seemingly endless number of companies and individuals are intent on separating us from our money. Some of them will use any means, fair or foul.
I’m going to share a story about a longtime friend whose kindness and generous nature were used against him when he was vulnerable. As much as anyone I’ve ever known, my friend—I’ll call him Bill—was a gentle man and a gentleman.
I WROTE PREVIOUSLY about my parents being victims of financial abuse by one of my brothers. Recently, I returned to Bangkok, which gave me a chance to discuss this situation at length with the entire family, including my other brothers and my uncle.
When the financial abuse of an elderly person is committed by a stranger, the rest of the family often has no chance to see warning signs. But 90% of abusers are family members or trusted individuals.
BEFORE I RETIRED, I was a credit risk manager. I had to take compliance courses annually. One course focused on financial abuse, especially of the elderly. I learned that the most common perpetrators are not strangers, but family members, friends and caregivers who take advantage of too-trusting seniors.
But it’s one thing to know this theoretically—and quite another to find out it’s happening in your own family.
I previously wrote about now both my late father and his close friend were victims of financial abuse.
