Financial Abuse
Published July 14, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT
Abuse most commonly conjures images of physical or sexual violence or verbal taunting. But there are many types of abuse, and one that's come up here before but never in its own post is financial abuse.
In Austin (TX), a woman who ran several group homes has been accused of exploiting residents by opening up credit card accounts in their names and using those accounts to make her own purchases. The woman, who has a list of prior convictions mostly for theft, is still at large.
This has echoes of the woman who stole thousands from the people she "helped" with their finances, local to me (OR). That woman was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
Such things don't only happen to people who are unable to manage money independently either. One of the panel speakers at the Megaconference personal care assistant session is completely capable of managing her own finances under typical circumstances. But a PCA once feed her double medication until she became so disoriented that the PCA was able to extort literally all of her money. The speaker ended up having to file for bankruptcy.
What to do about this? Especially for those of us who have no clue how to tell if finances are being managed properly or not?
A background check of the sort that any federally run service organization requires would have helped out with the woman in Austin. But not with the woman in Oregon who had no prior crimes and worked for a reputable service organization.
What else can we do to protect ourselves?
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Comments (2)
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.
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All I can think of is having other watchers "watch the watchers", and then it's best if these people are friends to us (if possible), and of course they should have no links at all to the staff (or whoever) who could potentially do the stealing.
This is the reason why I have no one managing my accounts and bills and taxes and stuff for me, even though it would be better. My partner keeps an eye on it, and my parents as back-up (which is not ideal, since, unfortunately, most likely one day they will die before me, so it's a good thing I trust my partner beyond 100% and he has promised he will keep looking after stuff like this for me even if we ever end up splitting up).
Posted by Norah vd Stel on 07/15/2009 @ 03:35AM PT
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There is a nonprofit here that is specifically designed to work with people's finances, though it is primarily targeted toward senior citizens (who often face the same types of fraud).
http://www.csihawaii.org
They had the name CSI before the crime show did; it stands for Comfort, Security, Independence.
If anyone wishes to start something similar, in a transit-friendly area, I might be available.
Posted by Mark Romoser on 07/15/2009 @ 12:12PM PT
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