ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Unauthorized Credit Card Use
Victim’s Family Spots Suspicious Charges
Protecting Older Loved Ones
Stealing a senior’s debit or credit cards and making unauthorized charges are a common form of financial elder abuse. Whenever a dishonest caregiver or other stranger enters a senior’s home or nursing home room, credit and debit cards and ATM cards, checks and entire check registers, accessible cash, and jewelry or other valuables provide an easy target. Dishonest caregivers strike quickly when they get their hands on a card and run up numerous unauthorized charges in a short time. This is especially true if the senior is confined to bed or one room of the home or otherwise unable to know what is going on around them. Patients in skilled nursing facilities or assisted care facilities are also at risk as a case discussed below illustrates. Any taking of a senior’s property, or any assistance in that taking, is a crime and grounds for civil liability of the person doing the taking and anyone assisting him or her. California Penal Code § 368 and Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 15610.30 (definition of financial elder abuse). California broadly defines what constitutes financial elder or dependent adult abuse:
(a) “Financial abuse” of an elder or dependent adult occurs when a person or entity does any of the following:
(1) Takes, secretes, appropriates, obtains, or retains real or personal property of an elder or dependent adult for a wrongful use or with intent to defraud, or both.
(2) Assists in taking, secreting, appropriating, obtaining, or retaining real or personal property of an elder or dependent adult for a wrongful use or with intent to defraud, or both.
(3) Takes, secretes, appropriates, obtains, or retains, or assists in taking, secreting, appropriating, obtaining, or retaining, real or personal property of an elder or dependent adult by undue influence, as defined in Section 15610.70.
If you or a loved one is a victim of elder or dependent adult abuse or neglect in Alameda County, call us today at (415)441-8669. Our toll-free number is 1-888-50EVANS (888-503-8267).
Case Example
In one reported case, [1]a caregiver was arrested for allegedly making thousands of dollars of unauthorized charges on debit and credit cards belonging to residents of an assisted care facility where she worked as a qualified medication aide (QMA), passing out medicine to residents. Her job sometimes required her to enter residents’ rooms to deliver or administer their medications, according to police. She now faces theft and fraud charges in connection with a pair of cases in which she’s accused of using residents’ debit and credit cards to make unauthorized purchases totaling thousands of dollars. In one of the cases, she allegedly charged her car insurance and car loan to a resident’s debit card, according to court documents. In another, police said she used a different resident’s debit and credit cards to make purchases at Amazon.com, and various retail stores. Between the two cases, she racked up $15,455.97 in unauthorized charges, investigators said. The daughter of two residents at the assisted living facility first noticed a pair of Door Dash purchases on her parents’ bank statements and reported them to police. That led her to look through previous bank statements, where she noticed the transactions for automobile insurance and a car loan.
Protecting Older Loved Ones
Careful monitoring of all a senior’s accounts – not just the household checking account – may have caught the reported fraud in this case sooner than many months. Start your due diligence even before you get to the account monitoring stage. Always do a background check on anyone you hire as a caregiver; get references and call them. Never, ever give a caregiver a Power of Attorney, credit card, or a blank check. Stay involved in any senior loved one’s life so a stranger does not have the opportunity for this kind of theft and exploitation.
Contact Us
If you sense any kind of abuse of an older loved one, call us right away. Ingrid M. Evans has years of experience in representing seniors and their families against abusers of any kind, including in-home caregivers and care facility staff in Alameda County. You can reach us at (415) 441-8669, or by email at info@evanslaw.com. Our toll-free number is 1-888-50EVANS (888-503-8267).
[1] Evans Law Firm, Inc. was not involved in the case in any way.
