“Even the smartest of us can get played,” says Levia Nahary.
“Anyone can be deceived,” says Rabbi Dr. Bennett Blum.
Both Nahary and Blum are talking about ways scammers exploit older adults.
Nahary, a former cybersecurity analyst, will present “Practical Ways to Stay Safe Online” at the upcoming Southern Arizona Jewish community AgeWell Day on Dec. 15.
Blum, an expert in forensic psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry who has consulted with law enforcement agencies worldwide, discussed the financial exploitation of older adults at a Northwest Tucson Jewish Community lunch and learn on Dec. 5.
His interest in the subject came from an incident that hit close to home: After his grandfather, a widower, fell and broke a hip, a home care nurse demanded extra money plus some of his late wife’s jewelry. When Blum’s grandfather told the nurse he’d report her to the home care agency, she responded, “Go ahead. I’m just going to tell them that you’re a demented old coot!” Blum’s grandfather, who was mentally sharp and usually fearless, was frightened. Fortunately, Blum’s mother was able to intervene and get the nurse out of his grandfather’s house before any serious damage was done.
While that nurse was direct in her extortion attempt, criminals often slyly insinuate themselves into their victims’ lives, Blum says.
A couple of months after his grandfather’s close call, while Blum was working at a Veteran’s Affairs hospital in Los Angeles, he learned of a patient who’d met a “new best friend” shortly before entering the hospital. The woman promised to take care of his apartment and pay his bills. When he was being released, he found out everything he had was gone, including his apartment.
Today, we are not shocked that elder financial abuse happens, Blum says, but back then, in the early 1990s, everyone from police to the FBI to his psychiatry teachers thought it was a rarity, or at least that the perpetrators were “uniquely horrible people.”
Over time, he says, “you find out the perpetrators are basically almost anyone.”
Statistics show that one in six people will be a victim of financial exploitation in which they lose at least one-third of their net worth to someone with undue influence, says Blum, who consulted on policy for a White House Conference on Aging in 2005. The statistics haven’t changed since then, he adds.
One ring of fraudsters in L.A. monitored home title transfers from two people to one to find divorced or widowed people in wealthy neighborhoods. They’d start with phone scams, noting people who were willing to stay on the phone and talk. Then a scammer would “accidentally” bump into one of these lonely people at the store or on the street and inveigle their way into a friendship, using information gleaned from public records, such as religious or political affiliation.
Today it’s even easier to find information about people using online searches, he notes.
Stressing that anyone can become vulnerable, Blum points out that comedian Groucho Marx famously became a victim of elder abuse by his secretary/manager, Erin Fleming.
The best protection against scammers, Blum says, is a strong social network. Interact with other people on an ongoing basis and don’t be afraid to ask family, friends, or other trusted folks, such as a financial advisor or lawyer, “Does this sound too good to be true?” if someone asks you to invest in their business. Be prepared to accept their answer, he adds.
Blum, who was ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion in 2007, recalls testifying in one case that gratified him as both a doctor and a rabbi.
In this case, a crooked real estate agent from Phoenix had a friend who worked in a hospital and would tell him about older people with no visitors. The scammer convinced a woman who’d been a successful developer to sell him a strip mall for a fraction of its worth.
The perpetrator turned out to be raising the money for a Hamas terror cell in Arizona, which meant the FBI got involved in the investigation. The cell planned to blow up the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or another popular landmark. Blum is thrilled to have contributed to breaking up “an actual terror cell” because of his interest in elder financial abuse.
At rabbinic school, he learned “how much our tradition had already considered” the problem of elder abuse, adds Blum, who wrote his thesis on the Talmudic and rabbinic understanding of undue influence.
While scammers may be able to find information about people online, avoiding the internet isn’t the answer. Social media can help people stay connected to old friends as well as their children and grandchildren.
Nahary describes her class for AgeWell Day as “security 101” for people who may feel uncomfortable or intimidated by the use of technology.
Participants, she says, will learn they can safely move around on the internet, “to be in the virtual world that we have to live in today.”
She’ll cover four main areas: using multifactor authentication, creating and storing passwords, keeping software updated, and recognizing and reporting “phishing” attempts, which are emails or texts that seem to come from a legitimate source but are really from a criminal trying to steal money or information.
Nahary’s first career was an educational counselor in Denver, helping high school students decide on and apply to colleges.
Looking for a new challenge just before the COVID lockdown, she realized cybersecurity could combine her interest in information technology with the counseling and consulting aspects of her previous role.
After intensive online training with SecureSet Academy, which was later acquired by the Flatiron School, Nahary got a job as a cybersecurity analyst with a managed service provider. She also taught in a cybersecurity boot camp.
Now the director of Jewish community engagement at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, Nahary still enjoys teaching cybersecurity workshops.
““The bad guys are getting more and more creative” and people need to know how to avoid their traps, she says. “It’s the way of the world.”
Registration for AgeWell Day is available here.
