Quote of note:
This year, sensing that mandatory-reporting legislation by Wolk and Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, might have a chance of passage, the California Bankers Association proposed alternative "elder abuse legislation" (AB1664) that calls for voluntary reporting of suspected fraud. In a conference call this week, representatives of the CBA suggested that employee training was the key to detecting elder abuse.
Which raises the question: If all banks were so concerned about the exploitation of their most vulnerable customers, why hasn't such training become the industry standard? Besides, let's cut through the industry-lobby smoke: A law to do something voluntarily is no law at all.
"If voluntary programs worked, I wouldn't be here with a bill, the district attorneys wouldn't be supporting it and senior organizations wouldn't be pushing for it," Wolk said. "What we have now is voluntary reporting -- and it isn't working."
On Financial Abuse
How to steal from grandma
Sunday, April 17, 2005
THE FOLKS who investigate and prosecute financial abuse against the elderly are frustrated by an enormous gap in the law.
Just about anyone in a position to detect that an elderly person has been scammed -- a nurse, a minister, a paramedic, a dental hygienist, even a podiatrist -- is required by law to relay those suspicions to authorities.
But there is an exception.
No one at the crime scene itself -- the bank -- is under any legal obligation to say anything to anyone. And too often, banks don't.
Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, sought to fill this obvious gap in the law after she heard about an 80-year-old West Sacramento woman who was snookered out of $50,000 by her son's girlfriend. When a bank employee questioned the early withdrawal by someone whose name was not on the certificate of deposit, the girlfriend brought the employee to an "obviously disoriented" nightgown-clad woman sitting in a car, said Yolo County District Attorney Dave Henderson. Yet the transaction was processed and authorities were not alerted to the theft until much later, by a family member.
