Rep. Pizzuto Joins AG Tong for Elder Justice Forum in Middlebury

Middlebury, Conn.— An Elder Justice Forum was hosted at Woodside Heights in Middlebury on Monday by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and State Representative William Pizzuto (R-71). Approximately 35 residents attended presentation about the new Elder Justice Hotline and other issues. The hotline, 1-860-808-5555, was established to help aging adults in Connecticut seek information, assistance, and justice.

Tong and Pizzuto were joined by State Senator Joan Hartley, First Selectman Ed St. John, Selectman J. Paul Vance, and Police Chief Patrick Deeley.

“We took some steps last session to better protect Connecticut’s seniors. I hope we can expand upon that work this session. One of the bills signed into law that I co-sponsored, Public Act 23-161, expands on Connecticut’s records and financial reports law to address financial exploitation against eligible adults,” said Pizzuto.

Under the new law, qualified designated persons may disclose to the Social Services and Banking commissioners when there’s reasonable cause to suspect financial exploitation or attempted exploitation of a senior citizen. A temporary hold would also be allowed on a disbursement of funds in these cases, with notice to all account holders. The law includes a process to petition such a hold.

Connecticut is the 7th oldest state in terms of median age with the 3rd longest lived constituency. National estimated annual cost of financial abuse is $36.5 billion, and costs include 1,061 victims, with $15,630,551 in losses (up from $10,645,305 in 2020) in Connecticut alone. The number of elder abuse cases in the state doubled between 2011 and 2017, rising from 3,529 to 7,196 cases. In Connecticut the top three categories of scam reported are imposter scams, ID theft, and online shopping.

Tong advised residents about the ‘Grandparent Scam’ and other frauds currently circulating.

Seniors are often the targets of family emergency scams, nicknamed “the grandparent scam,” and seniors were reminded to act with their heads and not just their hearts. Scammers may know names, relationships, or other details that they can easily find on social media. To avoid falling victim, Tong suggested hanging up and calling the family member directly to verify if there’s an actual emergency, or to come up with a password to ask for that only family members would know.

The biggest financial losses for seniors though, Tong says, come from romance scams.

The scammer then uses the illusion of a romantic or close relationship to manipulate and/or steal from the victim. The criminals will seem genuine, caring, and believable. They’ll make plans to meet in person, but that will never happen. Eventually, they will ask for money. The biggest tip to prevent fraud is to never send money to anyone you have only communicated with online or by phone.

“This is the time of year when IRS scams are popping up as people start filing their taxes. Scammers will use a logo that looks like the IRS on letters sent by mail, will spoof the IRS phone number in calls, or will use other numbers and claim to be from the IRS,” cautioned Pizzuto.

The objective of scammers is to trick consumers into revealing personal, financial information, such as Social Security numbers, bank account or credit card numbers. The IRS usually first contacts people by mail – not by phone or email – about unpaid taxes. And the IRS won’t ask for payment using a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer. The address of the official IRS Web site is www.irs.gov. Do not be confused or misled by sites claiming to be the IRS that end in .com, .net, .org or other designations instead of .gov. If you have fallen victim to an IRS scam, file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov, which is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.