Our Skilled Elder Financial Abuse Attorneys Represents Retirees and Seniors
Elder Financial Exploitation Leads To $28.3B in Losses Yearly, Reports AARP
If you are wondering whether you or someone you love may have suffered investment losses due to elder financial abuse by a broker, contact Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) today. Throughout the US, we help seniors and retirees in going after the brokerage firms whose negligence or misconduct led to them losing money.
According to a new AARP report, older US investors lose around $28.3B yearly because of financial exploitation. $20.8B of those funds are stolen by someone they know, including friends, family members, or caregivers. Some $8B is stolen by strangers.
There is also elder financial exploitation that is committed by trusted financial fiduciaries, such as registered brokers, who are supposed to help take care of their client’s funds rather than take advantage of an older investor’s accumulated lifetime of savings, cognitive challenges, or health issues and misappropriating their funds.
Sometimes, elder investment fraud by a broker may not even involve outright broker theft. Instead, an older investor may end up suffering losses because of unsuitable investment recommendations that were too risky for them, overconcentration in too many illiquid investments, due diligence failures, or some other type of financial advisor misconduct.
Our skilled retirement loss attorneys cannot tell you how many times a senior investor or their family member has come to us claiming that they had no idea how high-risk a financial product that they agreed to invest in was or that they had been misled into believing that their funds had been placed in safe, liquid investments.
What Are A Few Signs of Possible Elder Financial Abuse by a Broker?
- Your financial advisor seems unwilling to explain an investment to you or discuss your account.
- You notice that there are withdrawals from your account that you never authorized or don’t understand.
- Your broker is borrowing money from you or asking you to write checks to an account that they control.
- You are unable to withdraw funds you were told were liquid and to which you would have easy access. Instead, your money is frozen.
- Your stockbroker has gone MIA.
Unfortunately, there are some brokers that purposely will seek to target senior investors. The losses for these older customers, who may be retired or have hefty medical bills, can have catastrophic financial consequences. It doesn’t help that many elderly victims of financial exploitation tend to keep quiet about what happened whether due to shame or because they have certain impairments that keep them from speaking out.
**A key to protecting your retirement money is to have a solid estate plan in place. We have partnered with McCulloch & Miller to offer clients estate planning, elder law, and trust services.
What Should You Do If You Suspect Your Elderly Loved One Is The Victim of Elder Financial Exploitation?
If you suspect elder financial abuse by a registered representative, contact us today to request your free, no-obligation case consultation. Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas help retirees and seniors in determining whether their broker-dealer should be held responsible for their investment losses. Brokerage firms have a duty to properly supervise their financial advisors, including their activities in customers’ accounts. This means identifying any red flags indicating possible broker fraud and stopping any misconduct from continuing.
Even if your financial advisor didn’t defraud you—they failed to conduct the proper due diligence measures, which ended up involving you in a scam perpetrated by another party—you still may be able to pursue damages from the broker-dealer for your losses.
Over the decades, our trusted elder financial abuse law firm has recovered many millions of dollars for thousands of our clients.
Call (800) 259-9010 today.