Preventing elder financial exploitation, before it happens

Set up account monitoring before it’s needed

• Ask the bank about a “trusted contact” designation — it lets the bank contact a family member if they suspect exploitation, without giving that person account access or control.
• Set up account alerts for large transactions or new payees.
• Consider view-only access (not transaction authority) for an adult child, which lets you notice unusual activity without taking over finances.
• A daily transaction limit or a second signature requirement for large transfers can slow down a scam in progress, giving time to catch it.

The scams that specifically target older adults

• The grandparent scam: an urgent call or text claiming to be a grandchild in trouble, asking for money to be sent immediately and kept secret.
• AI voice-cloning: a newer, more convincing version of the same scam — scammers can now clone a real family member’s voice from a short public audio clip and use it on a call. Verify with a callback to a known number, never a number the caller provides, before ever sending money over a phone request.
• Romance scams: a relationship that develops quickly online, moves to money requests, and always finds a reason the person can’t meet in person.
• Tech support and government imposter scams: a pop-up, call, or email claiming to be from Microsoft, the IRS, Medicare, or a bank, creating urgency and demanding immediate payment or remote computer access.

The common thread across all of them: urgency, secrecy, and an unusual payment method (gift cards, wire transfers, cryptocurrency). A legitimate request almost never requires all three.

Family habits that help

• Agree on a family “safe word” in advance that a real family member would know to use in a genuine emergency call.
• Normalize a “let me call you back” pause as standard practice for any unexpected money request, not a sign of distrust.
• Check in regularly enough that a stranger’s sudden new involvement in a parent’s life — financial or romantic — would actually get noticed.
• If exploitation happens once, treat it as a pattern to prevent going forward, not just a single incident to recover from — a person who’s been scammed once is frequently targeted again.

When to bring in a professional fiduciary

If cognitive decline is making a parent genuinely vulnerable — not just occasionally careless, but unable to reliably recognize a scam — a professional fiduciary can take over financial management with legal accountability and oversight that an informal family arrangement doesn’t have. See what does a professional fiduciary do.