This program is made possible through support from the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, AARP Pennsylvania, and the Moses Taylor Foundation.

Pennsylvania PBS presents Aging Together, Justice for All, a program that brings together policy makers, advocates, and older adults to discuss how the Commonwealth and communities are uniting to protect older adults from financial exploitation and other forms of elder abuse.

And now, moderator, Julie Sidoni.

Pennsylvania is in a critical moment right now.

One in four Pennsylvanians is over the age of 60.

Quickly, that's becoming more like one in three, according to AARP Pennsylvania.

And many of those older adults are vulnerable to financial exploitation, which can take on a lot of different forms.

This is a topic that officials statewide are coming together to tackle.

And we're happy here to talk about just a few of the ways that is happening.

It was two years ago, back in May of 2024, that Governor Josh Shapiro launched the Aging Our Way PA plan, ultimately aimed at fostering independence among older adults.

Today on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, I'm glad to join Pennsylvania's Office of Elder Justice in the Courts, the Office of Attorney General, and the AARP as we recognize the contributions of older Pennsylvanians to our Commonwealth.

And to take a moment to remind folks that our older neighbors deserve to live with dignity, with safety, and with respect, no matter their age.

When I took office three years ago, I promised older Pennsylvanians that I would listen to them and create a Commonwealth where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and enjoy their golden years.

That's why my administration has always fought for our seniors and has always had their backs.

Under the great leadership of Secretary Jason Kavulich and his team at the Department of Aging, we created Aging Our Way PA, a 10 - year roadmap for 29 different Commonwealth agencies to work together to improve services and to meet the real needs of Pennsylvania seniors.

As a result of that plan, we developed the PA Care Kit to improve seniors' access to services and provide unpaid caregivers with the tools they need to support aging loved ones.

And this year, in my budget address, I called on the General Assembly to strengthen the Older Adult Protective Services Act for the first time in 30 years because it's time to strengthen background check requirements for caregivers, expand mandatory reporting practices, and finally classify financial exploitation as a crime so we can better protect older adults from fraud.

My administration is doing this important work alongside all of you, working to protect the dignity and safety of every older Pennsylvanian across our Commonwealth.

To those of you who are sharing your stories today, thank you for your courage.

Your words are going to help spur real change in strengthening protections for the 3.5 million older adults who call Pennsylvania home.

Thank you.

We've assembled a fantastic panel of experts to talk about elder justice, and I would like to introduce you to them now.

Actually, more appropriately, they're going to introduce themselves to you right now, starting with Secretary Jason Kavulich.

Thank you so much for being here, Secretary.

Thank you, Julie.

My name is Jason Kavulich.

I'm Secretary of Aging for Pennsylvania.

Our agency, our department, is responsible for 3 .4 or more million Pennsylvanians that are aging and growing older in the Commonwealth.

All right.

We welcome you here.

Amy Whitworth, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

I'm pleased to be here.

My name is Amy Whitworth.

I'm the Director of the Office of Elder Justice in the Courts.

We're a division of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

All right.

Welcome, Bill.

I'm Bill Johnston Walsh.

I'm the State Director for AARP Pennsylvania.

As everyone knows, AARP is a 50-plus organization, and we have 1.8 million members here in the Commonwealth.

Thank you for being here.

And Liz.

Hi.

I'm Liz Schneider.

I am the Chief Deputy of the Elder Exploitation Section for the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And I am very pleased to be here, and I am thrilled to be with these three folks whom over the last five months I've become fast friends with and done a lot of really tremendous work with.

So thank you for having us, and thank you for hosting this panel.

Well, let's start here.

What's happened over the last five months that you've gotten to know them so well?

So I personally have come out of relative obscurity and have been asked to head the newest section for the Office of the Attorney General in their criminal division, which is the Elder Exploitation Section.

We rolled out on November the 18th, 2025.

These folks were here with me to introduce the section and talk about the importance of getting after crimes against older adults in their many faces and ways that they present.

Is this something a lot of states are doing right now?

Actually, no.

Pennsylvania stands as one of the only states in the nation that has a section that is devoted to elder exploitation.

And I just want to add to that, because of Attorney General Sunday, taking the onus of starting this, because at AARP we do mostly education, so we did the education.

Now we need the stick, and I think the stick about having these criminals realize that they're not going to get away with it, we want to thank Attorney General Sunday for that.

Let's start with scams.

We'll talk a little bit about scams.

And I know that not everything that happens with vulnerable adults is a scam, and we'll get into that in a bit.

But scams are certainly sort of the hot button.

It's what people are hearing about right now.

Secretary, can you talk about just some of the varied scams that you're hearing out there right now?

We've heard about so many different scams, from the gold bars that an individual comes and takes your money and then goes and buys gold and is supposed to bring it back to your house, to the computer scams, that your warranty is up, all the way down to the turnpike scam, that you owe money on your turnpike, easy pass, and that you haven't paid and that you need to pay up, or you are going to get fined or lose your license.

They're just three quick examples that I can give you that are happening right now, that happen to all of us regardless of age.

But what we talk about more is financial exploitation in its entirety.

Scams are a part of financial exploitation.

Our area agencies on aging saw 52,679 reports of need this year that they investigated, and 33% of that were related to financial exploitation.

It is a number one growing problem for us.

It's a number one growing problem for Pennsylvanians.

Billions of dollars are being exploited from older adults each and every year.

We're exceptionally grateful to the Office of Attorney General, to Liz, to the partnership that we've been able to forge in five months, really helping educate, push back, and make sure that people are aware of what's going on out there, because we're just not talking about it enough.

And I'm glad that Bill and Amy are here with us today to help us spread that message and make sure people know that we're there with you, that we have resources for you, and that we'll support you in any way we can.

You brought up area agencies on aging, and I know there are some directors, AAAs in the audience today as we do this show.

Tell me about how that connection works, how you handle 52, and maybe there are more than that, 53, how many are there, and how do they connect?

You got it right, 52 area agencies on aging covering 67 counties.

And they work with the Department of Aging, they work with their partners in the community, whether the district attorney's office, local law enforcement, human service providers, to make sure we're administering services through the Older Americans Act to older Pennsylvanians.

But in this space that we're talking about today, they do protective services work.

Our Older Adult Protective Services Act in Pennsylvania gives us the ability to help individuals in these situations that are experiencing abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

So we, in the two counties that are most represented here, Lackawanna and Luzerne County, there is more than 2,000 in those two combined counties, more than 2,000 investigations alone in protective services for both of those counties, just in this small region of Pennsylvania.

And Amy, I was unaware that there was even someone like you that existed in the Pennsylvania courts.

I mean, so tell us and tell everyone a little bit about what your role is there.

Well, our office is relatively new in the 300-year history of our courts.

Our office has only been in existence since 2015.

It was created through the vision of now Chief Justice Deborah Todd, who they commissioned, the Supreme Court commissioned a elder law task force to really look at the challenges that older adults in Pennsylvania face and how could the courts better meet those needs.

And as a result of the efforts of that task force, our office was created, and we also established what we call the Advisory Council on Elder Justice, on whom all four of us sit on that.

It's essentially what you could consider a multidisciplinary team, but at a state level.

I've heard that term a lot.

That seems to be a term that you are all quite proud of.

What does that mean to you, though, or anyone really, that multidisciplinary team?

It means that we're not dealing with this alone.

It means that we can turn to our counterparts around the state to fight this issue of fraud and scams, as well as elder abuse in general.

We at AARP get about 500 calls in a day to AARP, not just in the state but throughout the country, but 500 calls a day of people or family members saying that someone has been scammed.

And for AARP to be able to reach out to the Attorney General's Office or the courts or Secretary Voolich or the AAAs to be able to support, give them this information, and for them to go out and make sure that this doesn't happen again is key.

I'll add to that that when you are in your own silo and discipline, you look at things from your perspective only.

So as a prosecutor, we're typically looking at crimes, perpetrators, and getting justice for our victims through a criminal prosecution.

But in working with these folks at the table, it's helped me to understand that in every case where someone has been victimized, whatever that situation may be, a prosecution isn't always the end result or the best result for our victim and our older adult.

And I can see that now.

I can also see and appreciate how an MDT, if we create a statewide model, that has the potential to create policy and best practices throughout the state for every single person who is dealing with an older adult and whatever their issue is.

You all brought up in some way, shape, or form scams as part of financial exploitation.

It seems to me that unless people come forward and share those stories, we don't know the impact.

And there is a couple who came forward with us.

They shared that story, and we would love to share that story with you now.

We didn't lose a penny.

We lost every penny.

And it's gone.

That's it.

They took a total of $860,000 from us, and so we lost all of our life savings.

They pulled us both in, and I was just fearful that we were losing the money.

They told us that our Social Security numbers had been hacked, our IP addresses, our finances, everything that everybody has that's important to them.

So it all started in my office.

And I was just at my computer on the afternoon of May 7, 2024.

Suddenly the whole screen lit up and just had the Microsoft logo and said, Your computer has been locked.

Call this number immediately.

So I called the number, and that's what started the whole mess.

A woman named Carol Thomas answered and said basically that we'd been hacked, our secure information had been leaked, and said that the TD Bank Fraud Department would contact me within an hour.

Thirty minutes later, somebody called from supposedly the TD Bank Fraud Department, and that's what started everything.

I did challenge them right from the beginning and asked what was going on and that kind of thing.

He said, Look at the number that I'm calling from.

So I looked at my phone and saw the number, and he said, Now compare that to the number on the back of your bank card.

And they were the exact same number.

Only later did I find out that they can make that number any number that they want to, and that that was not where he was calling from.

The scammers catch you at a vulnerable time, and the fear takes over.

And then it's like you got to act, you got to act, you got to act.

Stop and think first.

They told us right from the very beginning, We think this is an inside job within TD Bank.

You can't go to your bank because we're not sure who's in on it and who's not in on it and that kind of thing.

So they keep you isolated right from the very beginning.

It started off relatively small, and it just kind of kept mushrooming and mushrooming and mushrooming.

We'd already gone down that rabbit hole, and there was no way out.

He said, Now we're going to use Bitcoin.

And I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't feel comfortable using Bitcoin.

And he said, Oh, no, no, this is how the banks do it these days.

And so I did.

I went to the bank and withdrew some money and then stood at the Bitcoin machine, feeding my dollar bills in.

At the end, I called the TD Bank fraud department.

So I told her, Well, this is what's happened.

And she said, That's not the way this process works.

And that was what solidified for us.

Oh, my gosh, we've been scammed.

This is it.

When I finally realized that we had, in fact, lost everything, I felt gutted inside.

I felt empty.

I felt ashamed.

I felt embarrassed.

I felt stupid.

Most of all, I just felt, How could I be so dumb?

Other than money, this took away our trust in other people.

And now I am always very skeptical about phone calls, emails, text messages.

And if I don't recognize the number or they don't leave a message, they're spam and blocked.

The Department of Aging for me helped us in that it gave us a platform to be able to get our story out.

It has given us a platform to speak and to acknowledge what has happened and allowed us to speak out so that other people hopefully can hear this story and learn from us.

Stop and think first.

They will not take away the people that we are.

I will not let them take that away from us.

And Reverend Marsh is with us today in the audience.

Reverend, thank you for being here and, more importantly, for sharing your story so wide.

It breaks my heart to hear your wife say that she lost faith in people because of this.

I think that was probably the greatest loss.

I mean, the financial loss has never been recouped or anything like that.

But that's what we've clawed back is to regain that trust in people.

As she said, we're not going to let them change who we are.

And so that has been probably the hardest thing to do.

What would you like to tell people about this experience?

Or do you have any words of wisdom for people who think, well, that's not going to happen to me?

It can happen to anybody.

And I think that's what Deb and I are hoping to get out is that if it happened to us, it can happen to anyone.

And it may, in fact, happen to you.

We had not heard of someone who had had that happen.

And so we're just hoping that by telling this story, perhaps if you get a phone call or a text message or something, it will trigger something.

You'll say, wait a second, something doesn't sound right.

It seems to me I've heard something about this before.

So that's why we're coming forward.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

You're welcome.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

His case tells me how good the scammers are getting, how good they're getting at being able to, I mean, perhaps I haven't been paying enough attention to this.

What are your thoughts on where AI is headed and where technology is headed, where this is concerned?

Well, I mean, it's just so difficult to get ahead of it or just stay current with it.

You know, AI is taking this to a whole new level.

You know, we have calls that sound like family members.

We have calls that imitate people almost exactly.

And older adults are falling victim and younger adults, too, are falling victim all the time.

This is a real problem.

And really and truly, when you think about this, if we're not working together, there's no one single system that has any way to push back on this, from the federal system to the state system to the local system.

We have to be aligned.

And I think in Pennsylvania, we've turned a corner and that we have started to really pull together in both the folks that are here with us today, the Department of Banking, the state police and others, really driving in the same direction to make sure that there's protections in place for everyone.

And then talking about things that we keep seeing, communicating back and forth to each other.

You know, I remember when Colonel Paris was still with us.

I'm driving back from Pittsburgh and he's calling me about the gold bar scam and saying we need to talk to the FBI.

You know, those things need to start to happen more.

Those things are the only way we're going to be able to at least stay pace and be able to push back and keep people's resources safe.

And I think the other thing, too, is that people don't realize what they put out there on the Internet and in social media.

They put a lot of private information or they put pictures or they put videos of people's voices, as the secretary just said.

And that always comes back and criminals are out there collecting that so they can make it almost like they know you, they know your family.

So the scam could be easier and you buy into it because, oh, well, they know that little Jimmy just went to the beach in Florida and that's where he is.

So he's in trouble down there.

So I better better, you know, give the money that they're asking for.

I learned in a recent training that the scammers need six seconds of audio in order to mimic a human voice.

Six seconds of audio is enough to recreate a voice.

But then that kind of brings up the question for me.

You want perhaps seniors to be in touch with others.

It brings up isolation to me if if they'd have no one to talk to.

And now you're telling them don't put anything on social media that there seems to be sort of a problem there where how else are they supposed to get that connection?

Yeah, that's a great point.

I do think that's the root cause of so much of the exploitation that's occurring, whether it's by an unknown actor in our scams or by known loved ones.

There's the process of isolating the individual, cutting them off from all their family and friends and their their usual sources of support.

And then slowly but surely grooming them, much like a pedophile might groom a child, gaining their trust and then gaining access to all their resources.

What do you do about that?

Honestly, one of the best examples I have seen is Telspon.

I think that this is and Jason can give us the details on that if he cares to, but it's in the community.

There are literally roots in the community where they where there is a dedicated group of folks at Telspon who care about the older people who live in that community.

They're keeping an eye on them and their hand holding where they need to.

And when they really need help, they come and they become a resident at Telspon for a period of time until they can get back on their feet.

You know what?

Maybe it sounds corny, but it does take a village in this situation.

We need to be orbiting our older adults in our community and looking in on them and taking care of them, particularly if they don't have family and friends.

We do have a story about Telspon coming, Secretary, so we'll save that for just just a few minutes from now.

But I wanted to point out one other type of scam, the romance scam that one seems to be also circulating.

And again, someone has come forward to say this happened to me.

Don't want it to happen to you.

I have been on Facebook for a number of years, but I never, ever accept friend requests from someone I don't know.

It was during the lockdown of the pandemic.

And even though I had been widowed for 12 years at that point, the lockdown of the pandemic was a different animal to deal with.

And whether I was lonely or just feeling a little frivolous that day, whatever, I hit the accept button and it changed my life.

He told me his name was Tony.

I'd been widowed for 12 years and I never looked to have another relationship.

So I wasn't looking for this, but it kind of found me.

After a day or two on Facebook, he asked me to download an app so that we could speak to one another.

He wanted to hear my voice.

I mean, there wasn't anything out of the way about it.

It was just he would call me every day and say, how was your day, honey?

No one has said that to me since my husband died.

It just was a nice conversation that I look forward to each day.

And I will admit I did have some feelings for him after a while, even though I hadn't met him.

Tony did not ask me for any money for several months.

By that point, I trusted him.

These folks are very patient.

The scammers are willing to take whatever amount of time necessary to lay down that trust and reel you in.

Now, the way the money started was his daughter sent me an email frantic that she was sick and had no money.

So I called Tony and said she was sick and what have you.

And he asked me if I could get her a gift card.

And I took the pictures and I emailed it to her.

And before I got up from the computer, I checked the balance and it was already down to zero.

The financial loss was devastating, truly devastating to me.

But the loss of that love that I had opened myself up to again, just it broke my heart.

And I cried.

You are not stupid.

You are not dumb for falling for this.

It's a crime.

You are a victim of a crime.

If you think you're going through a scam, there's not a lot of help on getting the money back.

You really need to report this to the Department of Aging, Banking and Securities, the FTC, the FBI.

I mean, you know, everybody you can think of.

Just reach out because you aren't alone going through this.

And again, we appreciate Kate also sharing that story with us.

This leads me into social isolation and getting people around seniors.

So Elder Pennsylvania, I want to talk a little bit about socialization and how that might help this somehow.

Well, I think, you know, for 40 years, the Department of Aging and the 52 agencies on aging have been combating social isolation.

We only started calling it social isolation recently.

In fact, the Moses Taylor Foundation really was the first agency in this community to really push back on social isolation and support work around social isolation in a very long time.

But our senior community centers have been working at it for years.

But it's incredibly important, you know, to not just talk about senior community centers, but to talk about services like Meals on Wheels.

When a person comes to that door to make sure that that person that they're bringing the meal to is connected to a human being that is having conversations, that they can look at that person and know that if they look or appear to be different than the last time they delivered.

People living in isolation is a huge problem.

It has a huge impact on both their physical and their behavioral health.

And we as social workers, we as social services and other agencies have to recognize it has harmful consequences, not just, you know, physical and behavioral health consequences.

It has consequences like the video that we just saw.

A person who was lonely and felt that they needed to connect to someone was victimized.

And, you know, the criminal took full advantage of that weakness and exploited it for as much as they can.

That's a long game, too, those few months.

That's a long game.

Phil, go ahead.

I think the other thing, too, that we have to keep in mind is that people like Reverend Marsh or Kate are coming forward, which is wonderful.

I think the key thing is education again.

And I'm saying that because people, when it comes to living independently, independency is key, you know, for people.

They want to stay in their own home.

They want to stay in their community.

They're worried that as they get older that they're losing their faculties.

They're losing their ability to get out as much.

And they don't want their family or the community to know that they can't stay there anymore.

So by coming forward and saying, hey, I've been scammed, I've been duped, you know, kind of goes against that.

So we have to tell them that, you know, the Department of Aging, the AAA, they're not going to come in and take you out of your home just because you made a mistake.

We all make mistakes.

You know, we need to get through this and we need to educate others so this doesn't happen to other people.

I think, again, the independence has always been key to people.

Is that a misconception that people think I'm going to get in trouble for this?

Exactly.

I think there's layers.

I feel like I'm going to be in trouble.

I'm embarrassed.

I'm ashamed.

Again, like the video said, I feel stupid.

And, you know, we want to make sure that everyone knows that there is safe places everywhere you can go.

You don't just have to go to your area agency on aging.

Tell someone you feel comfortable with.

Tell someone in your church or your synagogue or wherever you practice your faith.

Tell someone in your community that you feel is connected to you and can help you get connected, whether that be a person who works at the library or a person that works at your bank.

Someone else can help you get connected to the services you need.

Go to law enforcement.

There's no wrong door in this space.

You should feel comfortable.

You should feel safe.

You should feel supported anywhere you go so that, you know, you can feel that you're not alone in this.

I've heard you call this a, oh, go ahead.

I'm so sorry.

I think, too, there's so many reasons that are so easy to point to understand why this type of crime is so underreported.

To build on something Liz said earlier, sometimes it's the perpetrator of these crimes is a family member or a loved one.

An older person may depend on that person, physically depend on that person for mobility issues, perhaps their source of transportation to get anywhere, to get their medications, to really care for themselves.

Also, there's an aspect of this, you know, Secretary said that this is a very layered, nuanced problem, and it's very true.

Another layer of this is that very often in the instance of a family member being the perpetrator of this type of abuse, there's a sense that although they've, you know, they've exercised this betrayal or they've crossed this line, the older adult doesn't want that person to get in trouble either.

And so that's another layer of this.

And there's another piece to it.

Once an older adult is victimized, particularly where it's financial exploitation, there's an automatic degradation of their spirit and their psyche, and they literally begin to decompensate.

If they don't have other folks around them, that process will have no way to stop, and they lose the ability to come forward.

And it has been statistically shown that it also hastens the onset of one's ultimate death.

And to Amy's point, in our system, you know, 47% of the perpetrators are family members.

47%?

Yes.

33% are the caregivers.

Wow.

And only 20% are from outside sources.

So, I mean, when you think about that, it's really, it's a huge issue.

And people don't want to see, you know, their family members prosecuted.

They don't want to see anyone, their loved ones in trouble.

But yet this is happening everywhere.

Prosecution-wise, it has to be difference between a known and an unknown criminal.

You know, that has to, instead of me asking you the question, go ahead and explain how that must factor into whether or not you're going to investigate.

Absolutely.

So that's a great distinction and a great question.

Up until now, primarily what we're talking about are scams by unknown actors.

The purpose of the new section is to go after individuals who are exploiting our older adults where the bad actor, rather, is known.

So that could be a husband or wife.

That's infrequent.

Typically, we see a sibling, children of the older adult, a blood relative of some sort, a niece, a nephew.

It could be a neighbor.

It is anyone who is a trusted individual pursuant to the statute that we can pursue legally.

It also includes folks who our older adult has named as their power of attorney.

Sometimes it is a guardian.

Giving us that platform to work from gives us the opportunity to actually pursue someone and seek justice for our older adult in a way that you can't do in a scam.

Scams are extraordinarily damaging and yet thoroughly unsatisfying from a prosecutorial standpoint because there's no end game there.

Specifically in guardianship, that's a very complex issue because a guardian is court appointed.

Every guardian is appointed to this person to care for this person, either their person and or their assets, by the court.

Most guardians are family members, but there is also the concept of a professional guardian, someone who does this for a living.

The vast majority of professional guardians are servant - hearted, very caring individuals who have dedicated their lives to take care of people who can no longer take care of themselves once there's been an adjudication of incapacity.

But when we have a bad actor who is a professional guardian who may work across many cases and across many counties, their ability to do harm is very great and it's a very serious situation for the courts.

We've worked very closely with the AG's office in attempting to have tighter controls and more education all around for everyone involved and to make sure that these cases are properly prosecuted and necessary.

That's where we were headed next, talking a little bit about adult guardianship.

I wonder if you could explain just a little bit more about what that is for someone who might not know.

Well, first of all, Pennsylvania passed some groundbreaking legislation in 2024, became effective in June of 2024, that when someone is alleged to be incapacitated, that the court must have them have a court-appointed attorney and that they must look for every possible least restrictive alternative to guardianship.

So the first thing to understand about guardianship is that this is when the court has determined, a judge has determined through a medical expert's opinion and in different sources and perhaps even interviewing the person themselves, that this person is no longer able to make decisions on their own and they are adjudicated incapacitated by the court.

And what that means is that this person can no longer enter into a contract.

They've lost much of their rights as an adult would have, and that the guardian that is put in place to care for them really controls everything, every aspect of their life, where they live, where they go, who sees them.

And so it's quite a very severe situation, and that's why the law was put in place that it should only be taken as an absolute last resort when there is no other solution in place.

So it's a very drastic situation.

And just to put some scope around it, today there are 18,500 Pennsylvanians who have been adjudicated incapacitated by the court.

Does the state secretary have anyone essentially to guard the guardians?

That's a great question, and that's a work in progress.

So we at the department, we're roughly responsible for about 24% of the guardianships through our protective services programs in Pennsylvania.

We're in the process of building our policy.

We're in the process of building out guidelines for our area agencies on aging.

We've already put into place guidance on making sure that they approach this through the least restrictive lens to make sure that there is no other alternative before we approach the court.

And last year we approached the court about 254 times in instances such as the ones that have been described.

But we're putting guardrails in place to make sure that we align with the practices that are coming from the Office of Elder Justice in the Courts, the work that we're doing with the attorney general, to watch those agencies that we are paying to do guardianship work for our 52 area agencies on aging or put guidance in place for those area agencies on aging that are doing guardianship work themselves in-house.

And I think the other key thing, too, is being fairly new to the elder justice in the courts group.

I've been very pleasantly surprised by the amount of education that they've been doing, not just for attorneys and for judges, but also for the general public.

Because coming as a layperson, when you hear anything about guardianship, you're, again, you're talking about that independence being taken away from you.

And I think by knowing this new law is out there and knowing that people are, there's other ways, other avenues that you can go down before you get to this point, I think has been key.

Yeah, that's a key message for the general public is that while you still have capacity to put measures in place to protect yourself so that a guardianship will not be made to be necessary.

You know, things like advanced directives and power of attorney and things like this for the eventuality that you should become incapacitated.

I was just going to say that the guardianship seems to be up here, but there are probably a lot of steps that even just a neighbor can take before we even get there, looking for some action items.

But those things must be taken, those steps must be taken while the person still has capacity to make those decisions.

Once, you know, so, you know, when tragic things happen and it can happen very suddenly, those options are removed.

I'll go back to you, Bill.

What at AARP do you tell people?

What's the advice you give on those lines?

What to be prepared for?

What are we not thinking about here when it comes to planning for finances down the line?

Sure.

So, so basically, again, I know I'm saying the word education a lot, but that's where that is really where AARP fits into into this model.

We do education, and then we also advocate for better laws that Pennsylvania has.

We try to make sure that we're out there talking to individuals about how they can stay independent, how they can stay in community.

We have, you know, our community of presence.

We're in several counties and cities around the Commonwealth, and we're trying to make sure that people know what their rights are as they age and about how can you stay in your home?

What do you need to know about staying in your home?

How do you deal with your finances?

How can you retire?

Can you retire right now?

How long do you have to wait?

Can you continue to work as you go along?

These are all different pieces that we put into place in our education so that people understand how they can stay as independent as possible as they age.

As our caseload increases from 17 when we first started in November to over 50 now in just six months time, we've seen that type of an increase.

The majority of our cases are abuses of powers of attorney.

And I have actually reached out to Bill with the thought that there should be a way for us to collaborate to get the word out there about powers of attorney, how to structure them properly, what to look out for and beware of, and how to protect yourself from an illicit actor, oftentimes somebody that you know.

So that sort of complicates the process, and yet it's ultimately very, very important.

Secretary?

So really to pick up on what Bill and Liz were saying, we've been talking a lot, like you said, about education.

And when we stood up Aging Our Way PA, our 10-year multi-sector plan, we heard in every corner of Pennsylvania, people don't know what's out there.

People don't know what resources are available to them.

Now, the Department of Aging spends a good amount of money trying to educate communities, and so does AARP, so does the Office of Attorney General and the Office of Elder Justice and the Corps of Banking and Securities, the state police.

We are all out there.

Now, today's exercise is really another level on all of us, trying to make sure that we're moving forward.

We're educating communities.

We're making people aware.

Finding those resources in communities, people in communities especially, that pay attention, that make change, that really lift up messages and share them with their neighbors, that's what we're here for today.

And I think our platform that we've chosen to make that message available in every home in Pennsylvania is important because that education will never stop.

It will only grow.

It will only evolve.

It will only change.

We love showing many different perspectives here, and we're going to show one more perspective, someone else who has decided to share their story with us.

Robert was a veteran.

He had served his country, saved his money, and should have lived his final years in peace.

But instead, he was betrayed.

At the end of his life, he was being financially exploited by a relative, in this case a nephew, who was taking his Social Security checks and left him home unattended, unassisted, and really he became dehydrated and became very ill and needed to be hospitalized.

We are targeted specifically because people have done what we've expected.

We've saved for retirement, and there are people out there who know that most of the wealth in this country is owned by older people.

Some of the most common scams that we see often in our complaint forms are imposter scams, and basically what that means is the scammer is an unknown individual pretending to be someone that you may know or even trust.

Your bank, government office, Social Security, IRS call, Medicare call.

But fraud isn't just about money.

It preys on loneliness and on the changes that come with age.

I know a lot of people in the field of aging who are very concerned about social isolation.

They were concerned before the pandemic and see that it's just gotten worse over time.

If you're lonely and depressed, you'll answer every phone call, regardless to who it is or if you even know the caller, and that is opening that door to fraud.

I think of it as a crime against humanity.

Like, how dare you, as we age, take advantage of us who have been given the blessing of long life?

I was fortunate enough to get a phone call from a senior community manager who advised they had a resident there who was insistent on getting a ride to his bank because he needed to withdraw a $9,000 check to pay for his publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes winnings.

We were able to convince him that it was fraud.

So just by that one phone call, we were able to save that person from being exploited by a scammer.

Stopping fraud is one piece of the puzzle.

But protection isn't only about scams.

Sometimes it's about neighbors noticing the smallest details.

I grew up in a small town.

I had an elderly aunt who lived by herself for a long time.

And one morning, she didn't raise the shades, and the neighbor noticed.

The reason we got help was because the neighbor noticed.

That's the heart of real protection.

Not just laws or agencies, but human connection.

We have to remember how much we love the older adults in our lives and to make sure we protect their interests while respecting their dignity.

They built this country.

Now it's our turn to protect them with vigilance, with justice, and with love.

If you suspect a family member, friend, or neighbor is subject to financial exploitation, contact the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General right away.

I can't imagine that there isn't someone around who doesn't have an aging family, friend, relative, family member, someone that they are worried about.

So what happens now?

What are the conversations we can have?

What are the documents we can put together?

What can be done?

I'd like to hear all of your perspectives on that.

Well, I think we need to continue to move forward.

What can be done is what's being done.

We're working together.

We're sharing a message.

We're making sure people are aware we're there to support them and that there's resources to protect them.

There's resources to reach out to if you feel like you've been exploited, if you feel like you've been scammed.

Again, I've said it multiple times today.

You're not alone, and we want to help you.

That is our whole entire goal is to help you.

We want older adults in Pennsylvania to live in their communities of choice with dignity, grace, and respect the way they want to, and we can't do that at the Department of Aging without good partners, and that's why we're sitting at this table with all of you as a good partner to work with you to make sure that every older adult has that choice, every adult has that support.

What would you like people to hear, if nothing else?

I feel so grateful and privileged to have this opportunity in my career to work on such an initiative with such great people, with such a passion for this work.

I think that a few common-sense measures, you know, the family password was a great suggestion.

You know, just check and double-check, just doing the pause, you know, to think before you act.

And then also, I just don't think it can be emphasized enough to do some estate planning.

You don't have to be a rich person to think that estate planning isn't for you, you know, just to protect whatever it is that you have, even if it's a modest amount of money, to have some estate planning in place, you know, and to think about, you know, aging and the eventuality of a diminished cognitive ability.

Nobody likes to think about those things, but we have to think about these things and prepare in order to protect.

Can you explain the family password one more time, how that might be helpful to a family?

Yeah, so we heard that some aspects of certain scams are that someone's portraying themselves to be a family member.

You know, it can just be, you know, so emotions are perhaps heightened and you're maybe not thinking as logically as you might, but if you could just have that single mechanism in place to say, okay, I'll help you.

I hear you and I'll help you.

Just give me the family password.

And probably if it's a scammer, they'll just hang up at that point.

But, you know, it's just a, you know, and then obviously not to use something.

So it's a pre-planned thing that everyone in your family would have this password, a secret password, and then don't put it on blast on Facebook like it's your pet's name or something like that.

It's like, you know, it's a secret, but something easy to remember.

Yeah, and the bad actors are not going away.

You know, we know that the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, just last year, the complaints went over a million to them and it's just going to continue to grow.

So I think, you know, the people around this table right now, as well as the other players, have to continue to be able to educate and get the information out there.

As these new scams come out, we should be talking about them.

We should be getting them.

At AARP, we have a few platforms to be able to do that.

We have our publications where we're constantly updating and letting people know.

We have the Fraud Watch Network that's able to have people connect with, they get a text every day if they sign up for it, and they're able to know about the most current scams that are going on out there.

We have a podcast at AARP that brings in experts in that talk about the issues.

So we're constantly just making sure that people are not going to be victimized again.

And people like Reverend Marsh and his wife and Kate, having additional people coming forward to tell their story is key.

Do you think, Liz, that people are hesitant to jump into the legal realm?

They don't want to call the attorney.

They feel like maybe that's going to be expensive or I don't want to get involved in all that.

Or as you suggested, Amy, I don't have much anyway.

Who's going to fight over what I have, et cetera.

I've heard those things anecdotally throughout my life.

Is that something that you face when it comes to what older adults have to plan for?

Yeah, I think that is a piece of it on the smaller cases.

Combine that with the fact that our jurisdiction, the Attorney General's Office, is for incidents financially of $20,000 or more.

That can sort of complicate matters a bit.

But local law enforcement is there to step in for those smaller dollar value items.

I do think there's tremendous fear about engaging with the legal community, though.

That's a very good point.

Message that I think that we're trying to send from our offices is that scams are one thing and we've spent a lot of time talking about them.

Education is probably the key there to create a deterrent effect.

But what we are now focused on is going after those bad actors who our older adult actually knows.

It's a person or people who we can very specifically investigate and prosecute and bring them to justice and potentially recover assets for our victim and get them back to a place where they feel good and they feel healthy.

Do you feel as though they are underreported?

Absolutely.

Yeah, 100%.

Talk a little bit about that.

Let's say there is someone, and I don't want to call anyone a victim, but let's say there is someone and they're being taken advantage of by someone they know and love.

We talked about this earlier.

They don't want to get that person in trouble or cause a family issue.

What then?

That seems like a very nuanced, complicated situation.

It is.

We have cases in which they will initially make the phone call or a loved one will make the phone call for them, and we will begin a prosecution, an investigation, and then the older adult will begin to turn course for the exact reasons that we discussed.

They don't want to see their loved one get in trouble.

They'll ask specific questions about, well, what will happen to them if this proceeds, and what am I going to have to do to make this investigation move forward?

So definitely that's out there.

That's a problem.

And that's happening in the cases that we actually have.

There are, I am sure, hundreds if not thousands of cases in the state of Pennsylvania that are not coming to our attention because the older adult is already being manipulated to the point where they are afraid to call us.

Like, I'm going to leave.

I'm not going to take care of you anymore.

I'm not going to feed you.

I won't give you your medication.

And I'm speaking anecdotally about cases that I am familiar with that never came to our attention to be investigated.

It's that dollar figure that would kick it to Attorney Sunday's office, the $20,000.

Anything else that case would have to hit the level?

Well, you must be an older adult, so over 60 years of age, $20,000, and that's for financial exploitation.

The section is also working on cases where an older adult has been abused or neglected.

Which kind of leads me to Telespond.

And I would like for you to talk a little bit about what Telespond Senior Center is doing here.

Sure.

But just to talk a little bit too about what Liz had just said.

So that $20,000 mark, yes, that's an important number for the attorney general, but there's protective service investigators that are in the audience today with us that can tell you countless stories of grandparents that all of a sudden they can't find their credit card, and one of their grandchildren borrowed that credit card and happened to charge X amount of dollars on it.

But they're not going to prosecute their grandchild.

They're not going to say, but it's still exploitation.

You still have someone taking advantage of a loved one, and there's a common example of something.

They might be taking thousands of dollars.

They may take $5,000.

But grandma or grandpa is not necessarily inclined to do anything to punish or see harsh treatment for their grandchildren.

That's an interesting example.

Yes.

But it's a real example.

And I said the investigators in the audience tonight can tell you that this is something that they've seen and that they know has happened.

What is unique about this region is that we built the older adult advocacy center at Telespond.

And the older adult advocacy center at Telespond is really, one, it's a six-county regional project.

Two, that's housed in Lackawanna County at Telespond Senior Services, which is an adult day center and also has a senior companion program and has personal care services.

So really a great nonprofit that has served the community for many years.

We helped build in this community an advocacy center that has four beds.

Well, actually it has five beds if you really want to get technical.

For older adults who are victims of abuse or exploitation or neglect.

And those beds are for transitional living space, that the older adult can come there and spend time and live there essentially and receive support services, wraparound services, in a safe location.

They can be interviewed by prosecutors.

They can be interviewed by law enforcement.

They can have a medical examination if necessary.

There's transportation services available to take them to appointments in the community.

It's totally wrapping an older adult in the services that they need but separating them from the situation that they're in.

In an emergency situation only or emergency?

Primarily in protective services emergency situations through the Area Agencies on Aging.

And it's a beautiful facility.

In instances like this before this was built in these communities around us, individuals would go to stay at a hotel that none of us would stop at unless we were in sheer desperation.

That was where we ended up housing individuals.

Or they unnecessarily went to a personal care home and they weren't at that level of care because there was no other alternatives for them to be housed at.

This is a true resource.

This is a true model.

That's really changing how we do protective services work, really changing the space around elder justice.

And it's a beautiful space that is for older adults only.

And it's very special in that way because they feel the support and they feel that they're in a safe environment and they can breathe and they can really talk through the issues with the people that are supporting them.

We got a tour of it, and we'd love to show you the inside.

If you would have seen the place that I was at, you wouldn't believe that I survived and conquered.

And these people here helped me get through it, so to speak.

The Older Adult Advocacy Center here at Telespond is unique because it provides a safe space for older adults who are being abused or neglected.

We bring those individuals into the center, and what we're able to do then is bring anything and everything they need to them.

So our facility is a five-bed facility.

While they're there, they're independent.

They can come and go as they please.

But what they do have is anyone they need comes to them.

So if they're in need of assistance with nutrition, someone will come and see them.

If they need some legal support, somebody will come and see them.

And that's what makes that project unique.

We have grown to offer many other programs.

So right now we offer home care coordination.

We have an adult day.

We also run two AmeriCorps senior programs that provide work opportunities for seniors.

We provide transportation.

And in June of 2025, we opened the Older Adult Advocacy Center.

For that reason, we are the perfect place for a program such as the Older Adult Advocacy Center.

We are able to help our older adults navigate through many different challenges, and we can refer them to the many different programs we offer in-house.

So we opened our doors on June 2nd and immediately had our first guest.

This gentleman came in with a multitude of unknown problems at the time.

And the reason why these problems were not seen out in where he was living is because of the work that the APS workers have to do.

Their time is so limited with each individual that they don't have the ability to sit there and spend hours and hours and hours with one client.

Fortunately, that is where we shine.

We had our guest come in.

We got to know him, and as we did, he started to tell us more and more about the reasons for his situation.

With that being the case, we were able then to put those structures into place so that when he transitioned out, he would be as independent as possible.

Well, it's a familiar place to me, and it's like being with my big brother and stuff like that.

Every time I have problems, I say, Cliff, I need you, and I explain what the situation is, and he helps me through a lot.

And I'm very proud to know that I have him as a friend.

Even though this model is very specific and very unique to any other older adult shelter in the United States, I think what we've built here can be replicated in the other counties and quite possibly in other states.

Through our programs, the Adult Day, Home Care, the Older Adult Advocacy Center, we're giving people a space to connect with others and help them with their needs, and I think that will make a huge difference in how they continue to age with dignity and independence.

And Helen Schmidt is here with us in the audience.

I think we all need a Cliff.

What's it been like this last year for you, almost a year now?

I think it's been a learning experience for all of us involved with the project just to understand the cross-sections of aging in our area and the needs that are prevalent for our aging community.

I'm lucky to have a team and a support network that has stepped up, and we have evolved with those needs, which I think is extremely important because I think that they will continue to evolve.

And I'm just very grateful, and I think our community needed it, and we're lucky to be a part of something like this.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your time and for being here.

We are just about to wrap up here.

Some brief final thoughts from you, Secretary.

Well, I want to thank my fellow panelists and thank them for continuing on this journey with me as we continue to talk about elder justice in all forms.

That's what we're here to talk about today.

And elder justice is not just about scams.

Elder justice is not just about abuse and neglect.

Elder justice takes on a whole different life.

We need to talk about how we're helping push back on ageism in communities, how we're making sure those that are in need of our assistance and need to be able to live in communities have the supports and services that they deserve.

So elder justice is bigger than all of us, and we all need to continue to work together if we want to achieve it for every older Pennsylvanian in this commonwealth.

Well, I can't thank you enough very much.

Thank you for being here and sharing your time and your expertise.

We sincerely thank the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, AARP Pennsylvania, and Moses Taylor Foundation for support in producing this discussion.

And we also thank you for being here with us.

I'm Julie Sidoni, and for all of us here at WVIA, we'll see you next time.

This program was made possible through support from the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, AARP Pennsylvania, and the Moses Taylor Foundation.