ElderWeb

A fascinating study done by Larry Jacoby of Washington University investigated the ways that younger and older adults remember things. The study found evidence that older people are more likely than younger people to falsely recall things from the past, they are less likely to be willing to say that they don't remember things, and they are susceptible to false "cues", as when someone insists they owe twice as much for something than the price they really agreed to.

In this study, researchers tested what happened when younger and older adults were given lists of things to remember. In one experiment, they were asked to recall the list, but told they could improve their score by passing if they weren't sure of the answer. In this experiment, the younger respondents were more likely than the older ones to say they didn't know the answer.

In other experiments, respondents sometimes were given false "cues" about what was on the list, and sometimes forced to come up with an answer if they weren't sure. In all experiments, the older respondents were more likely to have incorrect recollections of the list.

It will be interesting to see what other things can be learned from this line of investigation, but one suggestion is that people, as they get older, should probably trust their memory less and rely more on writing things down so they can refer to the facts later.

Some bank customers (elderly or otherwise!) may be the unwitting subjects of a new fraud scheme that uses fictitious IRS Forms and fraudulent bank correspondence. Fictitious documents that are not genuine IRS Forms and fraudulent letters addressed to a bank customer purporting to be from the customer's bank are being circulated nationwide in an attempt to steal the bank customer's identity and money by having them disclose personal and banking information. Later, when the perpetrator of the fraud contacts the bank, they have all the necessary customer information to appear credible.

Anyone that has filled in and returned the fictitious form via the fax number, mail service, or any other means should promptly notify all financial institutions with whom they do business. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Administrator of National Banks, suggests that anyone affected immediately do the following:

1. Contact the fraud department of each of the three major credit bureaus and report that your identity has been stolen. Also, consider asking the bank to place a "fraud alert" on your file and request that no new credit be granted without prior approval.
   
   

   	Equifax	Experian	Trans Union
   Address:	P.O. Box 740241 Atlanta, GA 30374-0241	P.O. Box 2104 Allen, TX 75013	760 Sproul Road P.O. Box 390 Springfield, PA 19064-0390
   Order Credit Report:	1-800-685-1111	1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)	1-800-916-8800
   Report Fraud:	1-800-525-6285	1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)	1-800-680-7289

2. For any accounts that have been fraudulently accessed or opened, contact the security department of each affected creditor or financial institution. Consider closing these accounts. Also, on any new accounts you open, consider using a password, but do not use your mother's maiden name.
3. File a report with your local police department or the police where the identity theft took place. Retain a copy of the police report in case your bank, credit card company, or others need proof of the crime at a later date.
4. Contact the Internal Revenue Service to report the incident using the following toll-free hotline number: 1-800-829-0433.

If a customer has received this fictitious form but did not complete and return it, any information which they have concerning this matter should be brought to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service at the same toll-free number listed above.

Additional sources of information for on what to do if you are a victim of identity theft, and the precautions to take to prevent becoming a victim, can be found at the Federal Trade Commission's Web site: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/victim.htm and the OCC's Web site: http://www.occ.treas.gov/idtheft.pdf.

Source: OCC Alert List

The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) released a new list of the "Top Ten Investment Scams", and warned the public that many of these scams are targeted directly at older adults. Deborah Bortner, president of NASAA and Washington State?s director of securities said that scammers are pitching their investments as low risk and high return to appeal to older Americans looking for a safe haven for their retirement funds. She said that the top problem on their list is unlicensed individuals, such as life insurance agents, selling securities. While most insurance agents do not violate the law, there is a growing problem with those that do. For instance, 11 of the 16 "cease and desist" orders issued by the Securities Division in Indiana in the first quarter of this year have targeted insurance agents who were selling securities without the proper license, most of whom were independent life insurance agents. A new scam on this year's list includes risky payphone and ATM investments, often sold by independent life insurance agents, and "callable" certificates of deposit sold to older Americans despite their 10- to 20-year maturities. These investments led to losses of about $76 million for 4,500 investors nationwide.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an online guide to dealing with fraud in healthcare products and services. This is a nicely organized list of who to contact to report fraud, abuse, or other problems related to medical claims and healthcare products and services. The guide also provides some consumer information about how to tell when products are "government approved".

The annual report of the 1998 Long Term Care Ombudsman program has been released. Long-Term Care Ombudsmen are advocates for residents of long-term care facilities. Thousands of trained volunteer ombudsmen provide an on-going presence in long-term care facilities, monitoring care and conditions and providing a voice for those who are unable to speak for themselves. Ombudsmen identify, investigate and resolve complaints made by or on behalf of residents, provide information to residents about long-term care services, represent the interests of residents before governmental agencies and seek administrative, legal and other remedies to protect residents, and perform many other important tasks to protect people who use long term care services.

The top five nursing home complaints were in categories involving poor resident care, lack of respect for residents and physical abuse. A three-year comparison of the top twenty nursing home complaints indicates the greatest increases in complaints about physical abuse, toileting, personal hygiene and unheeded requests for assistance, all of which point to persistent problems with lack of care for residents and the need for increased numbers of trained staff to assist residents. The top five board and care complaints were about menu quality, medication management, discharge/eviction, lack of respect for residents and physical abuse; the greatest increases over a three-year period were in the first three of these categories.

Insufficient numbers of staff to care for residents was the major institutional long-term care concern most frequently identified by the states in their FY 1998 reports. Ombudsmen linked low staffing to low wages and benefits and labor shortage and described how lack of staff relates directly to poor care for residents, which was cited as a major issue by a number of states. This correlates with the top five nursing home complaints, all of which relate to inadequate or poor care. As in previous years, discharge and transfer issues were identified as a major problem area by a large number of states, as was inadequate regulation of assisted living and similar non-nursing home facilities.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has taken disciplinary actions against one member firm and 23 individuals for violations of NYSE rules and federal securities laws. The cases, prosecuted by the NYSE Division of Enforcement, may be subject to review by the Securities and Exchange Commission and, thereafter, federal courts.

Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P. of St. Louis, Mo., a member firm, consented without admitting or denying guilt to findings that the firm failed to reasonably supervise and control the business activities of the firm and its employees with respect to the sale of callable CDs, among other violations. About 104 customers who bought the CDs from Edward Jones registered complaints ranging from being misinformed about the possible fluctuating market value of the CDs and the length of their maturity, the NYSE said. About 80 percent of the complainants were older than 65 during the period the CDs were sold from October 1994 to June 1997.

An NYSE hearing panel found that, during the period from approximately October 1994-June 1997, the firm failed to properly supervise the recommendation and sale of callable CDs by approximately 87 registered representatives to approximately 104 customers. The panel found that, in certain instances, the registered representatives did not adequately disclose the features and risks of the investment to customers and that the firm did not institute reasonable safeguards or follow-up procedures to ensure that those registered representatives understood and properly informed customers of the features of callable CDs including the call, reinvestment and market risks associated with the product. The panel also found that certain registered representatives sold callable CDs to some of the customers without having had any specific training and supervision regarding the sale of the product and the product features.

The hearing panel also found that the recommendation and sale of callable CDs by the firm to some of the customers was unsuitable in view of the customers' age, investment objectives and/or financial resources and that the firm also made misrepresentations to some of the customers and/or omitted to disclose certain facts in connection with the solicitation and/or sale of callable CDs to the customers (e.g., facts concerning the length of maturity, the call feature and the fluctuation of the callable CDs' market values).

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it has received more than 300 complaints related to CDs, five times more than last year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The SEC is investigating 33 brokerages, including Edward Jones, A.G. Edwards Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., PaineWebber, Prudential Securities, Salomon Smith Barney and Raymond James & Associates Inc., the paper said.

Fraud and abuse have migrated to the information age. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), with four other U.S. agencies and consumer protection organizations from 9 countries and 23 states announced 251 law enforcement actions against online scammers in "Operation Top Ten Dot Cons." The top 10 targeted scams were:

• Internet Auction Fraud
• Internet Service Provider Scams
• Internet Web Site Design/Promotions
• Web Cramming
• Internet Information and Adult Services
• Credit Card Cramming
• Multi-level Marketing/Pyramid Scams
• Business Opportunities and Work-At-Home Scams
• Investment Schemes and Get-Rich-Quick Scams
• Travel/Vacation Fraud
• Telephone/Pay-Per-Call Solicitation Frauds (including modem dialers and videotext)
• Health Care Frauds

In one scam, defendants mailed $3.50 "rebate" checks to consumers. When consumers cashed the check, they were unwittingly agreeing to allow the defendants to be their Internet Service Provider (ISP), and the defendants started placing monthly charges on their telephone bills. The defendants made it nearly impossible to cancel future monthly charges and receive refunds. In another variation, consumers were billed for a Website page they didn't even know they had. Targeting small businesses and not-for-profit organizations, the scammers call and offer a "free" Web page, then start billing phone bills without authorization.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced that five registered nurses holding high managerial positions at the Townhouse Extended Care Center in Uniondale have been charged with covering up acts of patient abuse at the facility by tampering with evidence and falsifying documents to deceive state investigators looking into the allegations. The focus of the state probes was a patient who died after being fed through an enema bag, and two other patients who sustained serious injuries in falls.

The defendants have been charged in a 21-count indictment with Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, and Tampering with Physical Evidence. Spitzer noted that the possibility of bringing patient abuse charges was precluded by the statute of limitations.

This case was the first to result from Attorney General Spitzer?s statewide nursing home initiative in which he directed each Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) regional office to target a nursing home for quality of care issues.

On the morning of April 5, 1997, a 97-year-old female patient died after Townhouse staff used an enema bag instead of a feeding bag to administer nourishment directly into the woman?s stomach. (A feeding bag is equipped with a regulator and pump, thereby allowing staff to control the flow of the liquid nourishment. An enema bag contains a clamp that allows only two positions ? open and closed.) Using the proper equipment, the feeding was supposed to take ten hours. However, as a result of using an enema bag, the entire feeding supplement was delivered in an hour or less. As a result, the patient experienced numerous episodes of vomiting and diarrhea throughout the night before dying.

When the State Department of Health (DOH) commenced an investigation into the patient?s death, Brown and Colon, in their capacity as Director and Assistant Director of Nursing, respectively, allegedly tried to cover up the facts and circumstances surrounding the patient?s death. They did so by directing staff, who had attended to the patient, to rewrite their nursing notes and written statements to falsely indicate that the proper equipment had been used. Brown then submitted these false statements to DOH.

As part of the cover-up, it is further alleged that Dwyer, who had been the R.N. supervisor on duty at the time, and who had ordered the enema bag to be used because no feed bags were available, falsely indicated in a written statement that there was no problem with the patient during her shift, and that nothing unusual was reported to her regarding the patient. In fact, Dwyer had repeatedly ignored requests by the staff to check on the patient once they realized she was in distress.

The Federal Trade Commission has won a $19.7 million judgment against Canadian telemarketers the FTC charged with operating an illegal international lottery scam. The FTC alleged that in calls from a Toronto-based boilerroom, the telemarketers used high pressure tactics to persuade consumers to send anywhere from $29 to thousands of dollars to invest in the lotteries. The federal court found that the defendants told consumers - most of whom were elderly - that they had been "specially selected" to participate in a system for playing the Canadian lottery and that the consumer was likely to win a large prize or jackpot by playing with the defendants. The court also found that telemarketers told the consumers that they were "registered" or "sponsored" by the Canadian Government to sell the lottery tickets, but failed to disclose that it was illegal to sell them to U. S. consumers. In fact, only a small percent of the money the telemarketers took in actually went toward the purchase of lottery tickets.

The defendants named in the FTC suit are Windermere Big Win International, Inc., Marathon Award Center, Inc., Sunshine Fortuity, Inc., Ernest Levy, a/k/a/Ernie Levy, Alan Silverstein, Selvanayagam Pararajasingam, Michael Levy, and George Ola. Consumers who believe they invested in foreign lotteries through one of the named defendants may apply for redress by contacting the FTC at 1-877-FTC-HELP.