Investigating Elder Financial Exploitation

What happens when trust is weaponized and life savings start to disappear? 

In this episode, we’ll expose the hidden world of elder financial exploitation — how these crimes play out, and how private investigators can help victims in their aftermath. 

Our guests are Clay Kahler and Mindy Bohn with Bohn & Associates in Wichita Falls, Texas. As a firm, they specialize in transdermal alcohol monitoring cases, law enforcement procedure, firearms cases, and exploitation cases. Mindy is the firm owner, and Clay serves as her right-hand Investigator. They'll talk about how PIs can help bring clarity to complex, emotional cases of elder fraud and undue influence. You’ll hear how investigations unfold, what warning signs families often miss, and how timely action can protect vulnerable loved ones. 

Host: Hal Humphreys 

Guest: Mindy Bohn & Clay Kahler

Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.

Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.

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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.

In this podcast, you'll find episodes that dive deep into the work and the business of private investigations. And at PI Education's YouTube channel, you can dive even deeper into the knowledge pool of this fascinating profession, with regular briefings and webinars. Subscribe to stay up to date!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Today, we step into the uneasy business of elder financial exploitation, where the damage is done by steady hands and familiar faces. We'll talk about how these schemes unfold, how money slips away in increments small enough to escape notice, and how private investigators follow the trail back through a fog of manipulation, half-truths, and misplaced loyalty. You'll hear what families tend to miss, what warning signs hide in plain sight, and what can be done when suspicion turns into something heavier. There is a way to bring order to the chaos, though it rarely arrives without a fight. If you believe this sort of thing happens to other people and other families and other towns, you may want to reconsider. Stay with us. This one deals in truth, and truth has a way of making itself known whether invited or not. Stick around.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

To get more intel on the real work of Private Eyes, subscribe to our YouTube channel, readPursuitMag.com, and take classes at PIEducation.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to The Sound of Pursuit. I'm Hal Humphreys, your host, and I'm joined today by Clay Collar and Mindy Bond, private investigators for Bond and Associates out of Wichita Falls, Texas. As a firm, they specialize in transdermal alcohol monitoring cases, law enforcement procedure, firearms cases, and exploitation cases. Mindy is the firm owner and Clay serves as her right hand. Clay and Mindy, welcome to the Sound of Pursuit. And I want to be totally transparent. I have spent time with Clay and Mindy. I have met them personally. I like them both. Thank you guys so much for being on the show. Tell us a little bit about your business there, Mindy.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Well, we have been around, I want to say, for 14 years, maybe. We have done a range of civil criminal cases. Uh started out with myself and one investigator part-time, and then Clay came in, and now we're up to five. Oh wow. Uh we enjoy the criminal side. Uh we do a range of, I'd say all the above, um various things. And we work all over Texas, not just Wichita Falls or Wichita County. We've done cases in South Texas. Um, we've done cases out of Dallas, even Amarillo, Lubbock. Um, there's there's a range of area that we will certainly cover and whatever is feasible with the attorney and the courts. We do a lot of court-appointed cases as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Clay, tell us a little bit about your background.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Um, I'm an old soldier who became an old cop who became an old civilian that does PI work.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

I love it. Well, let's talk a little bit about elder financial exploitation. What does that even mean? Um, financial exploitation of elders. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Well, it's it's either a a caregiver, a family member, or a complete stranger that moves in, wins the trust of, and then financially exploits the fortune of an elderly uh citizen. Um, usually uh undetected by the family until a certain point. Once the family realizes what's going on, that's when we get involved.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

You know, my um my mom and dad have both passed away in the past um 18 months now. My dad died about um 18 months ago. My mom died in January. And I'm sorry. Yes. As as we watch them go through this process, um there's always a concern that someone is going to try and take advantage of them. Um I live in Nashville. My mom lives down in Humboldt or lived down in Humboldt, Tennessee. My sister lived down there with my mom, not in the same house, but nearby. Um and I'm curious, you know, when it comes to cases like this, who do you see are the perpetrators? Are they more likely to be family members, romantic partners, caregivers, or strangers?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

I would say caregivers, um caregivers that are self appointed. Some that turn into a romantic situation, and the ones that we are hired, I'd say the majority of that we have been hired are uh widowed men. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Um I can't honestly, if there was a female widower, but we've got one female, she wasn't a widower, uh, she was a physician here in town, and she was exploited by an employee.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah, I I think that's a little different, but yes, it's a puzzlement case. Um, but on on these others, it's it's ironic because the men become lonely. Uh they either their wife is, we've had one that the wife was still living, um, but she was ill, couldn't get around, and they had a caretaker, and the caretaker uh did everything she could to become romantically involved with this gentleman, um, to the point, you know, once the wife passed away, there was a question of how much money had been given or what was utilized. Um, we've had situations where the gentleman um, very wealthy, had property, had assets. He actually had a lot of retail stores in town. Um, and he had leased to a woman who had a retail environment, had a credit card machine, and he was giving her free rent for a little while, and she continued to work her way into uh taking care of him, becoming the sprint. Um, and he would give her a credit card to go buy stuff. She'd run it through her machine and would take thousands of dollars. She remodeled her kitchen and her back patio, put in a new uh new appliances. I mean, total, totally everything new, added onto the back patio, put fans in, a decking. It's it's there's no limits.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

I'm I'm laughing um because you know, a lot number one, you guys are in this business as well. You have to laugh sometimes because some of the stuff is just absurd. But it makes sense to me that that men are um elderly men especially tend to be more vulnerable. Um, you're dealing with, you know, they've had someone that has taken care of them, lifted them up, done that whole thing for so long, and now they find themselves on their own. Um yeah, that's that's interesting. Let me ask you this what are some common red flags that family members or caregivers, actual caregivers who actually care, um, should look out for in potential exploitation scenarios. What are things to watch out for?

SPEAKER_02 7:11

One of the primary ones is isolation. Um, one of the one of the tools that these exploiters use is they begin putting a wedge between the victim and their family members. They will tell them, you know, your daughter only wants your money, and that's this sort of thing. And I'm the only one you can trust, I'm the only one you can count on. And and so that that isolation is one thing. Um, another thing is when somebody unknown begins making regular appearances, and you see this this beginning to uh of elevation in their lifestyle, that that's that's a red flag.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Bank accounts um are very telling credit cards, and not all family members have access to that information. But I know the ones that we've worked with, some of them started noticing or they'd notice a bill setting on the desk that paid for something that they're thinking, what hey, dad, what is this about? You know, um, there was one gentleman had a uh young girl. When I say young, I mean he was in his 70s, she was in her 40s, but she was a serial criminal, and he felt bad for her. Um, that's the other thing is, you know, these men feel bad for these individual women, and they get a sob story, and your older generation do feel like the man needs to take care of the woman. And so they come along and they're you know, this woe is me story, pitiful me. And and so this gentleman in particular had allowed her to move in, and he's close to his kids. He he has he had a son and a daughter, they were older and had grandkids. Um, but when she he knew they were coming, he'd make her leave. And so she lived there for a year before they knew that. Um, it was this game, and he knew it was wrong, but he didn't he knew his family wouldn't approve of it, so he had a lot until he would lie about it. Yeah, yeah, he would lie about it because he also knew she wasn't a good girl, but you know, on the other side, people think that just because you're elderly, you may not have interest in sex, and that is not true. There's a game that is played with some of these women, and they will dress provocatively.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

So in some of these cases, uh the the women are taking advantage of the innate rescue mindset that the man may have. Um, they will they will come up with this sob story, and of course, this man immediately wants to rescue this damsel in distress.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Very much that is that is that is the reason why I said I can see why men might be vulnerable to this more so than women. And especially, I think, you know, Mindy, you pointed out this older generation, we're dealing with with the tail end of the boomer generation where we're where men were men and they did strong and powerful things and they took care of the women. A doe-eyed female in distress is is just begging for some man to come in and and save the day.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

And um well, chivalry, you know, that's still alive in that generation. Uh, we're losing it in these newer, young younger generations, but it's still alive in our generation and before. Um, and then another aspect of that um is not only do these women present themselves as a damsel in distress, but they're also the savior. Um, they're gonna come in and they're gonna take care of you and they're gonna make sure that you have all that you need. And and they that's why I said in the very beginning, self-uh appointed caregivers.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Yeah, I think that's that's a really good point to to to point out. So again, I've got some not personal experience with the scamming part, but personal experience with the the worrying about someone being taken advantage of with my parents' situation. And you know, one of the things that my sister and I were real concerned about was you know the small, you know, small amounts being conned out of an old elderly person. And I'm I'm talking, you know, a couple hundred bucks here, a couple hundred bucks there. Um you know, can you tell us about some of the cases you guys have worked in some of these cameras are able to con people out of their entire family savings? Um how have you come across cases like that?

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yes, we had one. This this was, I would say, probably one of our biggest ones. Um this woman would hang around at the local casino uh looking for elderly men, and she would immediately attach herself to them. Um, we were hired by one family here locally uh because she she had already gotten this guy out of tens of thousands of dollars, and she she really just she was a parasite. Um, in investigating that, we came across another gentleman across the state line in Oklahoma that she uh she had actually conned him into marrying her, uh, giving her um power of attorney. And by the time that she was done with him, she had gotten him over out of half a million dollars. Oh we had witnesses that saw her spending twenty thousand dollars a night at the casino.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

And and I want to say this this is not always younger girls. This lady was she was elderly too.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Well, she was she was she was in her sixties, she was in her sixties going after men in her 80s, and she looked like an apple core doll. So she wasn't a pretty girl.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

She was not, she was very rough, and and what we have seen with a lot of these cases, most of them are rough looking. Um, every once in a while you might find a a cute pretty 20-year-old, and he's gonna save her because she's going to college, her life has been rough. We've we've had that too, but a lot of them are rough and they want to change their lives and and do something great for them.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

In that one particular case, um, like I said, she got him out of over a half a million dollars. And one of the things that she did with that power of attorney was she was taking 10-acre plots of land and selling that a 10-acre plot of land to her own family members for$10 a piece.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Good heavens, the things people will do. Let me ask you this what role does undue influence play in some of these cases you've seen, and and how can investigators prove undue influence?

SPEAKER_02 13:45

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Um That is a good question.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

It's that's a It's the manipulation aspect. Um the the problem is they in the cases that we've worked, I would say I don't know that we've ever came across one where they were literally stealing from the victim. They were conning the victim.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Well, they were they might have been somewhat stealing in the fact that they were never authorized to do certain things. But here's the reality is what we tell every client that comes to us is understand your father or your parent has say with their money. And if if if that parent is willing to turn in this individual who fraudulently uh played a game in their life and took their money, then it's gonna be a great case. Even though you report it to APS, even though you do everything to fight for it, it is still a battle for these parents, I mean, for these kids to deal with their family because more than likely, especially if it's a man who's older generation, they're not going to turn them in. They're just not.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

And unless uh unless the parent has been deemed to be uh incompetent, then yeah, incompetent. It's a really hard case. And and I will tell you this, Al, um, out of every case that we've worked, and we've resolved a number of these cases, uh, not one case do we have where the the victim was made whole. Once that money's gone, it's gone.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

I will also say one became so serious that the uh female that was the perpetrator ended up killing herself.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Um he wanted to have the last word, and she was gonna go back to she did it on video. She did it on video up until I guess the moment of, but she sent the gentleman. Um, he was done with her. He finally had he was scared of her. Um, she was not good. And he he went ahead and uh terminated talking to her, and she kept calling, kept calling, and finally she sang this song to him and then sent a video of herself before she did it because she was going back to prison. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Oh my gosh. That is that is absolutely catastrophic. You know, yeah. The the the number of things that are sad about these cases is overwhelming. Um, but to me personally, the saddest cases are the ones where a family member exploits an older person. Oh, yeah. Often someone with dementia or some other impairment. Have you seen cases like this?

SPEAKER_02 16:22

We did. Uh we had one case in particular where there were two siblings. Um, one sibling hired us, she had been the caregiver of their mother. And uh her her and her sister got along in the beginning, and her so her sister took the mother to a doctor's appointment and then simply never came back. And so the uh our client hired us and we began investigating this, and uh it turned out that she the mother was paying the the daughter's uh mortgage and her car payment and funding her trips to the casino. I mean, she she was just taking everything she could from her mom.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

The granddaughter, too. I think the granddaughter was in on it.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah, her car payment was being made as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

The mother did have dementia. She was she was confused and she wondered why she couldn't see the other sister, and and there were some manipulation tactics in that too.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, as a matter of fact, one of the things that would happen is the non-custodial sister, so to speak, the one that kidnapped the mom, uh, convinced the mom over a period of time that uh our client was trying to hurt her. And it took a long time to be able to overcome that. We eventually won this case in the courts, and uh our client was awarded back custody of her sister and uh of her mother, and then her sister ran into some serious trouble.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Yeah, that was gonna be my next question is how did that case get resolved? What ended up happening?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Well, wound up that our client wound up getting uh custody back of the mom, and then uh I don't know what happened. I the sister was the sister had an attorney that was not a very good attorney, which wound up being the target of another investigation of ours. And uh she she did get in trouble through the courts, but I I think there was some restitution that was required.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah, it it turned out in our client's favor, and she would send us pictures or whatever at times, just saying she's thankful that they're all back together again and she knows her mother is safe and not being harmed. Uh, because her sister was crazy enough that she would yell and scream, and we don't know if she would slap you. We don't, you know, she was kind of of that demeanor that there was probably some violence in that.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Well, and we went undercover on this particular case. Her sister, uh, the one that that took to kidnap the mom, was a property manager at a local uh apartment complex. And so what we did was I went undercover as somebody looking to rent an apartment, and so I kept her occupied, and Mindy went and knocked on the door and was able to talk to the mom to demonstrate that she was being left alone during the day, which was part of the problem.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Oh, that's absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Let me ask you this. So, so we're we're we're all investigators. Um, most of our audience is investigators. Talk to me about how private investigators go about gathering evidence in elder exploitation cases, especially when the victim has cognitive impairment.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

It's surveillance heavy. Uh, there's a lot of surveillance that take place takes place on these cases, documenting um the comings and goings of the perpetrator. Um, another thing that we do is if if the child, the our client, who's generally the child, uh has the uh capability, we have them run credit reports. Um that is a huge tell uh if they can run a credit report on on the uh the victim. But there's a lot of surveillance, a lot of documenting, uh, like I said, the the activity of the individual, um, a lot of getting videos and pictures. In fact, uh one case that we had, the uh the perpetrator was arrested and then given probation and was required to pay restitution back to the victim. So what she was would do is she would meet with the victim secretly, he would give her money, then she would take that and use that to pay the restitution. And so we we were able to follow them and document that. And she wound up then getting revoked and and got a 10 year prison sentence.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

It's basically finding everything out, possibly about your uh the individual that is taking advantage because some we have found had no history of criminal history, some had criminal history.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

One down in Louisiana was remember that one where her victim wound up dead.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yes, yes. She was a nurse, and you know, you you find out as much as you can, and when you're dealing with the family member, you want to find out the impairment of the parent, you know, it because that makes a difference if you're gonna go after financial crime here. Uh law enforcement, APS, people, adult protective services are not gonna really jump on this if the person is willingly giving the money away. Uh that has been a problem.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

That that brings me to two points that I want to get into just real quickly. Um, you know, Mindy and Clay both, uh I've I've been in your offices, I've spent time there, and and you know that I spend a lot of time out in the field interviewing witnesses. How do you go about interviewing an elderly victim who may not want to admit that they've been exploited? Um, maybe they're embarrassed or in denial. How how do you go about gathering that kind of information?

SPEAKER_01 21:54

I think there's a few parts to play in that. One is it depends on the Individual and it depends on the client of what they tell us. Um, the elderly lady that was not supposed to be left alone, and her daughter was the property manager. The whole point in that was to prove her knowledge of for that day. So when I went to, I didn't really do an interview, but I did, but I posed as somebody else looking for somebody else, uh, knocking on her door, and then from there getting in conversation, asking her, you know, how how she was doing, and did she know what address I was at? Because I I think I may be at the wrong apartment complex. And it's proving, you know, videoing her, not audio, but videoing her. Um, and she doesn't know this, right? So I'm videoing her and I'm asking her questions to make her answer. And oh, what is your daughter's name? Um, you know, maybe I know her, those types of things. And you could tell in the video she was lost. Yeah. Um, she was kind of confused. She had no idea what address she was at. And so that type of situation is a little bit different. If it is somebody who's willing to talk to us, which I want to say we've never talked to the victim because not as investigators, yeah, not as an interview, most of the time under a pretext of some kind, if yeah at all. It it is more that the client will say they're not gonna tell you X, Y, and Z. So then we play to that. We either play this game of um being somebody knocking on the door asking for questions, or uh telling the client, hey, we'll set up and meet with all of you as a family, right? And let's talk about the dangers of the person that they're dealing with. Let's, you know, we've had one family member say, bring us all the criminal history you have. That that might be helpful. Yeah. Uh, bring us this information, and we will track down, interview other people or talk to people that may know this person. Um, they can give us, you know, factual information, and then we will offer to do that.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

The case that we had um involving the nurse, she she came out of Louisiana and she came up here, and this was interesting. This was not a male-female, this is female-female. She forced her way in as the nurse for um an elderly female uh who wound up dying in her care. And when we started digging into her background, we discovered uh 11 marriages. It was it was significant, and and some very suspicious deaths in her wake. Um, she she was uh she was a an angel of death kind of case.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Let me ask you another question. You know, this is this is the the second part of what I was kind of keyed up with what you're saying before. Um how do you tell the difference between a gift or a loan and a coerced transaction?

SPEAKER_02 25:07

That's a good question. Um, one would be frequency. Um, you know, if if somebody of their right mind is giving a gift to a friend, that is going to be a rarity. Um, if it becomes we've got a case now, I wouldn't say it necessarily fits this, but we've got a case now where um an older married man met a younger single female, and over the course of the last couple of years, he's given her over$300,000. Uh, he there's a house that he is leasing for her, um, an Audi that he's leasing for her. Um, and that it becomes obvious at a certain point just because of the frequency and the amount. Uh, and then the other side of that is what are the reasons, what are the cons? What are the the what game is the perpetrator perpetrator playing against the victim? Um, we've you know had people that say, well, I need this for you know college, or I need this because my kids are in trouble, or I need this for this reason, medical, or whatever else. And then, of course, it turns out that they're spending it at the casino or whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

And then in this this case in particular, the uh husband has admitted to things, so he is willingly giving this money away, but yet he's being manipulated because she's uh from another country in a common here and she's been married a few times. Uh, she bankrupted the last husband. So, you know, we haven't been able to do an interview with him yet. That's on the agenda, but every um some situations are different. And I think we did have another uh we had a grandmother and a granddaughter, and the grandmother actually did speak with us. I forgot about that. Um, she hired us because she or we were appointed on the defense side, is what it was. And we interviewed the grandmother, and the grandmother said, Yes, I did get I give her money or let her use my card to get groceries. Yeah, I would do that every so often, but it came to a point where the money was being spent on clothing and furniture and things like shopping streets. Yeah, he did not authorize, and she was clear to say so. I never authorize this. Um, so there are some people that know exactly what they authorized or didn't authorize, and some know, but they just can't, you know, either they try to cut it off and then find out the person's still stealing from them or set up another card or whatever it may be. So there are some situations that these victims do know what they did authorize, and it it takes them a while because they don't want to turn in a family member, but eventually they will.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

The thing that occurs to me right now is you're you're dealing with you're dealing with not only stealing from an elderly person, but potentially stealing legacy from you know future generations, that kind of business. Yes. And you guys are dealing with some pretty bad actors out there. Do you ever find yourself collaborating with law enforcement or protective services of these kind of investigations?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yes. Yes, a number of times we have worked hand in hand with law enforcement. Um, the uh the case that Mindy just told you about where the woman uh ended her own life. Um we we were coordinating with law enforcement. As a matter of fact, we had just gotten her arrested the week prior to her suicide. Um, and then the case that we were telling you about with the uh elderly gentleman here locally, and then the other guy in Oklahoma at the same time, um, we were working with detectives here in Wichita Falls, and that's uh she wound up, like I said, getting a 10-year sentence.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Okay. Well, now you know, we we've talked about we've talked about the bad actors, we've talked about, you know, working with the police and and kind of how you piece all these things together. Any advice for investigators? Um what can investigators do to help victims in the aftermath of these crimes?

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Well, there's like I said, one of the things that that the victims need to understand is that they're not going to be made whole. Uh they're they're they're not going to get that back. What they've lost, they've lost. And so the best thing that the families and the victims can do is set up safeguards. Um one important uh thing is, you know, with with the especially with the elderly, uh, even if they're still cognizant and and have of sound mind, is have a secondary put on any checking accounts. So if a check over a certain amount is written, it requires a second signature. Um also um, you know, just putting safeguards in place where uh trusted family members can monitor the financial uh condition. And you know, again, pulling credit reports is really a very good tool that any any family member can do, provided they have the authorization. And that, you know, lets you see if there's anything on the tail end that the victim may not even be aware of. Like Mindy said earlier, um, people oftentimes are uh you know getting credit cards in other people's names. And then um, you know, one of the other things that we recommend to families is if somebody new pops around, give us a call, let us let us run a background check.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

And I would I would also say, in uh in addition to what Clay is saying, is if you have this, the family members are ready to move forward because they want to prosecute whoever, um, which is usually a long haul because you've got to have your victim on board with that, and sometimes they're not, but you get law enforcement involved, you get a report done, you get uh, you know, that a credit card was used unauthorized for this, this, and this. You pass that along. You even may get an attorney involved in that, depending on um how far they're willing to go. And that that would be the steps to wholly shut down this party. Yeah, it would be a matter of also making sure you shut down this person from doing it again to another family member or I mean to another individual, another victim. Uh, because that's it's horrible. They'll keep going, they're not gonna stop. This is like a sickness, and this is how they make their income and their living. And sometimes they have two or three people that they're doing this to at one time, and that is something you always want to look into, and that becomes the surveillance portion of this is seeing where they go, you know, who else are they talking to? We we know of several that were uh had multiple victims all at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. I think um, you know, at the end of the day, what I'm gonna say to to kind of wrap up your your suggestions is pay attention. Yeah, pay attention, be aware of what is going on with your elderly family member and their finances and who is hanging about and those kind of things. Clay, Mindy, I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to be here and talk to us about elder abuse and exploitation cases and how they play out. I guess there's I guess it's worth pointing out that you don't have to be 90 years old or suffering from dementia to be victimized. We're all vulnerable to scammers or even to a manipulative person who's close to us. If people want to learn more about red flags to watch for or what to do after someone's been exploited financially, is there a resource you can recommend?

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Um that is a good question.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Um well, your your local APS, um, whatever your state's version of Adult Protective Services, um, they have some resources. And uh oftentimes, sometimes the financial institutions will have some sources as what resources as well. One of the things that uh we didn't mention going back to um what to do in the aftermath is uh in the event that you know it it's credit card related, um, get the the financial institutions fraud department involved. Yeah, um they they take that very seriously, they they get real excited when they get those cases. But as far as resources go, um a lot of financial institutions, a lot of uh community uh elderly community organizations will have some information uh that you can uh glean from. Uh, but like you said, Hal, the the most important thing is just pay attention.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

And I would make a suggestion because home health care is also a huge area for exporting the elderly. And I I say that lightly because obviously not everybody is bad, but that is, you know, if you've got somebody coming like uh they're even just coming to set with your family member, or they're doing little things, they're running errands, they're doing grocery shopping, or it's a neighbor, even. But if it's home health care or something of that, you need to ask questions about how long they've been employed, what is their background, how many people have they taken care of? Because I will tell you, um, my mom who passed away a year ago as well, she I was, of course, with her all the time. So everybody that came in the house, it just made me leery of who they were. Um, because of working cases, being an investigator. So that happens a lot, and you'd be surprised at how much it happens. So you want to make sure background checks are conducted and so forth.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Yeah, the the interesting thing, you know, in in in dealing with my mom and my dad's demise over the past couple of years. Um, we knew the home health care person that was staying with my father. Um, her sister and I graduated high school together. We are still to this day very big friends. Um, she came recommended through my mom and dad's financial advisor. She took care of my dad for a long time. Um, when my dad died, um, we it just felt natural to bring her over to sit in with my mom. But the key is you know the person, you know who they are, you know their background, you know those things. And even then, sometimes you have to be careful. Clay, Mindy, let me ask you this. If people wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do that?

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Uh Bon and Associates.biz. Um, we have a website there. Uh, there's contact information on there. You can certainly reach out to us through email uh through the through the website. Um yeah, that's the easiest way to get out of us.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Phone number for the office is 940-264-0088.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Very good. Uh guys, I I I literally can't thank you enough for being here. I think this is really useful information um for the general public, uh, but also for investigators. Think about ways we can work uh with our clients to to protect uh their family members and and possibly legacies worth of wealth that can be uh drained from. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

And it's a very good topic because it's happening more and more. It's not slowing down. We're seeing it amp top. So thank you for inviting us for this topic.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Oh, absolute pleasure. Thank you guys so much. And if we have nothing else, I'm Hal Humphreys, and that is your Sound of Pursuit for this week.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

You've been listening to The Sound of Pursuit, a podcast by Pursuit Magazine and PI Education.