Financial Abuse

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?