Kiplinger Article: Watch Out for the Elder Fraud Web Scams Range from Petty Theft to Embezzlement

Your parents may need your help.

By Miriam Cross

There were warning signs: A constantly ringing phone. Bank accounts in disarray after an apparent hack. Messages from her family that went unreturned for days because she was extremely busy. A new man in her life, with whom she talked over the phone but never in person. Rochelle, an active, social, independent 86-year-old resident of Los Angeles, was being exploited by an international fraudster. But it was only months after those signs first appeared that the people who cared about her made sense of them.

Concerned friends and neighbors refrained from asking too many questions out of respect for Rochelle’s privacy. It was only when Rochelle’s son Brad and daughter-in-law Nancy, who live in Sacramento, visited her last September that they realized…

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