As part of her work supervising beauty salons at department stores, Helen Karr heard the same stories over and over again. Elderly customers would tell their hairdressers how they'd lent money to family members, caregivers or acquaintances, and never had it repaid. They'd be afraid to ask for it - and afraid about how they'd manage without it.

"I kept thinking someone should do something about this," Karr said. "Then I read an article about two older women attorneys who offer pro bono or low-cost legal help for people. I thought, I could do that."

So at age 65, she went back to school to become an attorney, enrolling at San Francisco Law School, a private night school. After graduation, she started focusing on the topic of elder abuse.

Now 78, Karr is the elder abuse special assistant in the San Francisco district attorney's office, offering advice to seniors on protecting themselves against fraud and scams - even from within their own families.

"It never dawned on me that this might be a crime," Karr said. "It wasn't until I became an attorney that financial abuse was included as a crime of elder abuse. It is just plain stealing."

Widespread problem

On Thursday, she contributed to the first of two panel discussions at the Commonwealth Club on the financial exploitation of elders. With some 50 million Americans age 62 and older, comprising a fifth of the population, it's a huge and growing problem.

"It's a problem about which the entire population needs to be better educated," said Gloria Duffy, CEO of the Commonwealth Club. "I hear stories about it from pretty much everyone I talk to."

Recognizing how widespread elder financial abuse is, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has an Office for the Financial Protection of Older Americans, led by Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, who will speak on another Commonwealth panel on May 15.

"Older Americans are victimized by a broad range of perpetrators, including scam artists, family members, caregivers, financial advisers, home repair contractors, and fiduciaries such as agents under power of attorney and court-appointed guardians," he said in Congressional testimony last year.

Help for the helpers

The agency is working to create a guide for nonprofessionals who help manage finances of older adults, often those with diminished capacity, "to provide rules of the road, standards of practices, tips on how to protect the elders' funds from financial exploitation," said Jenefer Duane, older Americans senior program analyst at the agency and a speaker at Thursday's Commonwealth panel. "We want to help lay fiduciaries be a bulwark against financial exploitation."

Another upcoming project: creating a national curriculum for consumers on recognizing and reporting scams and identity theft. While public awareness has increased dramatically in recent years, there's still much more that can be done, she said.

"As Americans age, the rate of older adults going into retirement with significant assets and becoming targets is increasing," she said. "We're battling the tide here."

Several factors have fed the current surge. Ironically, the biggest one may be improved medical care that allows people to live longer - even while, in some cases, their mental capacities decline.

"More and more people are outliving their ability to manage their own finances," Duffy said. "Often they aren't fully aware that they're losing that capacity. That offers greater and greater opportunities for people who are dishonest."

New California law

Karr helped spearhead a California law to mandate that banks report suspected elder financial abuse, in the same way that teachers are mandated to report suspicions of child abuse.

Now she trains bank employees to help them understand what elder financial abuse is so they can spot possible instances. With a strong focus on prevention, she speaks often at seniors' groups, and trains senior volunteers.

She also helped get May designed as Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse Awareness Month in California.

A big issue on her radar: annuity and insurance fraud. "An annuity can be a good investment," she said. "But if you're already in your 70s and an insurance salesman tries to sell you one, and the fine print is that you can't take out your money for 20 years without a very steep penalty, that's an inappropriate product for that person."

Elders can take proactive steps to protect themselves, such as setting up irrevocable trusts and appointing a trusted relative to help handle their affairs, Duffy said.

"We need to build prompts for people to protect themselves," she said.

Learn more about it

The Commonwealth Club will host the second of two panels on elder financial abuse in May. The discussion begins at 5:15 p.m., after a reception at 4:45. The cost is $8 for members, $20 for others at

May 15: "Elder Financial Abuse: The Silent Crime." Speakers Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, executive director of the Office for the Financial Protection of Older Americans, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; George Gascón, San Francisco district attorney; Shay Matthews, assistant district attorney; Helen Karr, elder abuse special assistant, San Francisco district attorney's office

Elder abuse resources

Elder Financial Protection Network:

National Center on Elder Abuse:

ElderCare Locator:
