Elder abuse can happen in various forms, from the most explicit physical abuse to the more discrete emotional and financial abuse. Today’s course will zero in on financial exploitation – how it is committed, the key players, and the investigative process – including the important files and documents to use in proving exploitation.

This webinar’s guest is a forensic accountant, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). With a decade’s worth of experience on financial exploitation cases, Karen Webber played an integral role for the New York State as a part of their multi-disciplinary team dealing with elder abuse cases,  and by providing training on the subject.

Today, Karen will break down elder financial exploitation by going through examples and insights related to such cases. Some of the points she raised include:

• The legal definition of financial exploitation, some examples of how it can transpire in our day to day lives, and the typical suspects to perpetrating financial exploitation.
• Some of the challenges that hinder in addressing and solving the issue of financial exploitation and research findings and statistics supporting these.
• The community resources available citizens can tap into in case of financial exploitation.
• The E-MDT model that New York State employs to tackle the issue of financial exploitation and the agencies that comprise and collaborate as the team.
• Some of the red flags to watch out for to identify potential financial exploitation cases.
• What forensic accountants are, their tasks and capabilities and when to consider getting one.
• The essential components of a forensic accounting report.
• The role forensic accountants play in investigating elder abuse cases and a brief timeline of developments and how their roles grew in the last couple of years.
• Resources to find a forensic accountant all over the US.
• How to go by forensic accounting and primary things to consider if you do not have a forensic accountant.
• The Gramm-Leach-Billey Act that can guide law enforcement in maneuvering around the financial industry organizations, limitations, and other technicalities.
• A rundown of the documents to check to locate an individual’s assets and investigate for irregularities or discrepancies.
• Dealing with Power of Attorneys, what to look out for and how to scrutinize the document.
• How to check the presence of cognitive impairment and which documentation to review.
• Key considerations when going through medical and health records.
• Specific warning signs to help you identify financial exploitation through the documents that you have on hand.
• How to construct your case by putting together a timeline and a summary of bank records, which will then be reconciled and compared so you may provide the facts of the case, findings, and a summary with all the necessary references and appendices.
• Some of the topics discussed during the Q&A segment are: 
  • What bank cheques and teller notes are
  • Funding for a forensic accountant and their estimated rate per hour
  • The amount of time needed for a forensic accountant to analyze a case
  • Dealing with financial institutions who refuse to cooperate
  • Creating a compelling case by working with lawyers and forensic accountants
  • Software used to organize data
  • Common defense techniques
  • Excessive fees from banks to obtain bank record copies