http://www.ktvu.com/bartshooting/22640521/detail.html
In California, a woman was arrested because she confessed that she committed 38 counts of financial embezzelment from a 83 year old woman in her care. She confessed to the police that she did take the money and she is now in the county jail on a $1.2 million bond.
Financial elder abuse is one of the main forms of elder abuse and it happens way too often. This is when someone that the elder person trusts takes their money that they are supposed to live on, forces them to get rid of possessions, or steals their money. The person that does the financial fraud is usually someone that the elder person knows very well like a child or a grandchild. This is a website that talks about the signs of financial elder abuse and how to report it if you see it. Elder abuse is a crime and can be stopped if the person is caught and put in jail.
http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/InPerson/MajorPerson/elder_abuse.htm
This article reminds me of my developmental psychology class. We talked about elderly abuse and how it is way more serious than people think. We talked about how most elderly abuse is not reported because the victm feels ashamed and embarrassed that the abuse is actually happening to them. Someimes if th person doing the abuse is a family member, the victim feels like if they say anything than they will dissapoint their family.
This actually happened in my family. My grandma was really sick before she died and my uncle offered to let her stay with him. She accepted, and moved from her home in Lake View, IA to somewhere in Missouri with him. He made her get rid of a lot of stuff before moving (which luckily ended up with my mom and aunt) Well, other than that, it seemed all was fine until my uncle decided that if she were to stay with him, she needed to pay him rent and money for groceries and things like that. They ended up charging her $500/month. She felt like she had to stay because the rest of her family was in Iowa and she wasn't able to move again. My uncle ended up sending her to a nursing home in Missouri. My mom and aunt didn't know that this was going on until she was in the nursing home and they felt they couldn't do anything about it.
It really makes me sad that things like this happen on a regular basis. It is good that there are sites that can help people be more aware of this and how to stop it.