The CEO and President of First Financial Bank, Scott Dueser, spoke this past Wednesday about the problem of Elder Abuse. According to Mr. Dueser, every year billions of dollars are stolen from senior citizens using scams and in some cases, outright theft. These scams and thefts occur at a time when most of these individuals have retired and are relying solely on their savings they spent a lifetime accumulating.  Once the senior’s nest egg is gone, they may no longer be able to afford food, housing and medical bills, at a time when they are no longer able to work.  

Unfortunately, a huge portion of the problem can be the senior’s own children and relatives. Typically, relatives and outside parties prey on the senior’s sense of loneliness and isolation. Mr. Dueser described many scams used to take money from seniors such as requesting money for fraudulent charities on one end of the spectrum, to having individuals call seniors pretending to be their grandson and alleging that the grandson needs money to get out of a Mexican jail on the other end.

Mr. Dueser talked about the elder abuse training First Financial Bank gives all their loan officers and tellers. They even give out awards when a bank employee is able to prevent this type of fraud. Since the elder abuse program has been in effect, bank employees have been able to stop approximately $100,000,000 of potential fraud.