Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and NTEU is proud to represent the employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) who work to fight one of the most common and devastating forms of elder abuse—financial exploitation.
Cases of elder financial exploitation usually involve a trusted person in the life of a vulnerable adult—such as a caretaker, neighbor or family member—but scams and fraud by strangers are also increasingly common. While few cases of financial exploitation are ever brought to the attention of law enforcement, estimates of annual losses are in the billions.
Here is how CFPB employees are working to fight this growing problem:
Last year, CFPB released recommendations for banks and credit unions on how to prevent, recognize, report and respond to financial exploitation of older Americans. The bureau also worked with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to develop a curriculum for volunteers to use to raise awareness of elder financial exploitation.
CFPB has also assembled 900 elder protection networks nationwide to improve responses to reported abuse cases. And to directly reach older Americans, CFPB created a series of materials with tips to help avoid fraud that are used by financial institutions and meal delivery providers like Meals on Wheels.
Learn more about this work here and join NTEU’s fight to protect CFPB from attacks in Congress.