Elder Financial Abuse: Warning Signs When Someone Close Is Draining a Parent's Accounts

The person stealing from your parent probably knows their ATM PIN. They might have a key to the house. They may even call themselves a caregiver, a close friend, or a son or daughter.

Elder financial abuse by a trusted person is more common than many families realize, and it can stay hidden longer because of that trust. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Initiative splits financial exploitation into two types: fraud by strangers, and financial abuse by someone the older person knows, such as a family member, a power of attorney, or a trusted professional. Because victims are often unwilling to report someone they love, the losses compound quietly for months or years before anyone acts.

This isn’t a problem happening to other families. If you have an aging parent, knowing the warning signs is one of the most practical things you can do right now.

Why family members and caregivers are a major risk

Strangers commit most of the scams that target older adults. But financial abuse is different: the person with real, sustained access to your parent’s accounts is often someone who’s already in the picture.

The National Center on Elder Abuse, summarizing research on offenders, reports that family members (54%) and care workers (31%) were the more frequent perpetrators of financial abuse, compared with partners (13%). A trusted caregiver, a family member, a new romantic interest, all sit in the same risk category: someone your parent may not question.

What makes this so hard to catch is that the exploitation rarely starts with a dramatic act. It starts with access. A son who’s added to a bank account “just in case.” A daughter who handles the bills after a health scare. A caregiver who drives to appointments and, eventually, to the ATM. The trust is real. The opportunity it creates is, too.

What follows tends to be slow. Small amounts first, then larger ones. A check here, a wire transfer there. By the time the pattern is visible, months of losses have already stacked up.

Behavioral warning signs to watch for

The money moves second. Behavior shifts first.

A parent being financially exploited will often change how they talk, or don’t talk, about money. Watch for these patterns during visits and calls:

• Sudden secrecy about finances. A parent who used to mention bills, balances, or savings without prompting now gets vague or changes the subject.
• A new “close” person who controls financial conversations. Someone recent (a friend, online contact, or helper) seems to know more about your parent’s accounts than family does, and your parent defers to them.
• Withdrawal from family. Exploitative people work better without witnesses. A parent who was social and now cancels plans, or who seems to take calls only when certain people aren’t around, is showing a classic sign.
• Anxiety or fear when money comes up. Panic about a missed payment, fear of getting in trouble, or defensiveness when asked simple financial questions can all point to exploitation already in progress.
• Urgency around a specific transaction. A rushed trip to the bank, reluctance to explain a purchase of gift cards, or pressure to wire money quickly are warning signs regardless of the explanation offered.

Any one of these on its own might mean nothing. What you’re looking for is a shift from how your parent normally behaves, especially if it lines up with what you find on their statements.

Financial warning signs that show up on paper

Behavior tells you where to look. The bank statement tells you what actually happened.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Initiative lists warning signs such as unexplained large withdrawals, unpaid bills despite adequate funds, additional names on a bank signature card, and forged signatures. These patterns, and a few others families commonly notice, are worth watching for:

• Large or repeated withdrawals with no clear reason. A parent who never took out more than a few hundred dollars at a time is now withdrawing thousands, or making the same withdrawal week after week.
• Unpaid bills despite adequate funds. Money is clearly leaving the account, but the electric bill is past due and the credit card hasn’t been paid.
• Accounts or CDs closed early, with penalties. Someone is draining accessible funds without concern for the cost of doing so.
• New names added to accounts. A joint owner who appeared recently, without a conversation you remember having.
• Statements no longer arriving at home. A changed mailing address or a switch to paperless statements your parent didn’t ask for can be a way to keep family from seeing the activity.
• Checks written as “loans” or “gifts.” A pattern of checks made out to one person, often described in the memo line as something informal and hard to dispute.
• Signature changes or outright forgery. Inconsistent handwriting on recent checks is worth bringing to the bank directly.

You don’t need special access to notice most of this. A pile of unopened mail, a call from the bank about an unusual wire, or an offhand mention that a bill hasn’t been paid are all things a family member can catch during an ordinary visit.

How big is this problem?

Bigger than many families expect, and reported losses are rising.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 201,266 complaints from people 60 and older in 2025, with reported losses of $7.7 billion, up from $4.9 billion in 2024 and $3.4 billion in 2023. These figures cover reported fraud of all kinds, not only abuse by family. According to the DOJ Elder Justice Initiative, financial exploitation causes serious financial, physical, and emotional harm to older adults, and the losses that actually get reported represent only a fraction of what’s happening.

NCEA estimates that for every case of elder abuse reported to authorities, nearly 24 more go undetected, and that only about 1 in 44 cases of financial exploitation receives formal supportive services. These estimates trace to an older New York State study, so treat them as indicative. When the perpetrator is a family member, that silence can run even deeper. Victims often feel that reporting a son or daughter would destroy the family, so they absorb the loss and say nothing.

The practical result: the money is gone, the exploitation often continues, and years can pass before anyone outside the household knows what happened.

What to do if you see the signs

Seeing warning signs is uncomfortable, especially if the person you suspect is a sibling or someone your parent clearly trusts. But acting early makes a real difference.

Start with a conversation, not an accusation. Ask your parent open-ended questions about their finances, not “Is someone stealing from you?” but “How have things been going with bills lately?” Listen for confusion, fear, or a story that doesn’t quite add up.

Contact their bank. Banks have fraud teams and may have protocols for situations like this. You can tell the bank what you’ve noticed, though privacy rules generally mean it can’t share account details with you. If your parent is willing, contact the bank together and ask about setting up transaction alerts tied to your parent’s phone or yours.

Call Adult Protective Services. Every state has an Adult Protective Services (APS) program, though how it works varies by state and county. You can generally report anonymously, but how your identity is protected depends on state law, according to NCEA’s APS fact sheet. To find your local office, call the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advises reporting suspected elder financial abuse to APS and local law enforcement.

Report scams and fraud. If a stranger or a scam is involved, report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov. If it involves wire transfers, gift cards, or online accounts, you can also file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, or call the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-FRAUD-11.

If there’s immediate risk, call 911. A parent in danger or under active coercion is an emergency.

How to protect a parent before something goes wrong

You don’t have to wait for a warning sign to act. These steps don’t require you to take over your parent’s finances, just to create some visibility.

• Set up transaction alerts. Many banks let account holders receive a text or email when a transaction exceeds a set amount. This is usually quick to configure and gives you an early warning system that runs in the background.
• Ask about a trusted contact. Brokerage firms are required to ask for a trusted contact person, and some banks and credit unions offer one too. It’s someone the firm can reach out to if it notices unusual activity. This doesn’t give that person any control over the account; it just opens a communication channel.
• Talk about power of attorney. A durable financial power of attorney names a trusted person to manage financial affairs if your parent becomes unable to. It’s an important document, and the CFPB suggests consulting a lawyer about whether it’s right for you. Choose the agent carefully, because a power of attorney can itself be misused. It’s best set up while your parent is healthy, not after a crisis.
• Stay regularly involved. The most effective protection is ongoing contact. A parent who talks to family regularly, and whose finances are part of those conversations, is a harder target than one who is isolated and dependent on a single person.

The part that makes this hard

Most elder financial abuse isn’t committed by a villain. It’s committed by someone who rationalizes, who tells themselves they’ve earned this, or that they’re just borrowing, or that Mom would want them to have it.

That rationalization is part of why victims stay silent. Reporting a stranger who scammed you feels like justice. Reporting a son or daughter feels like destruction.

But the cost of silence is real. Older adults who are financially exploited don’t just lose money. They lose security, independence, and the resources they spent a lifetime building. That’s worth the uncomfortable conversation.

If you’re seeing warning signs, start there. One honest conversation, followed by one call to their bank, can change what happens next.

Conclusion

Elder financial abuse by someone close is hard to spot and harder to report, but the signs usually show up in both behavior and bank statements. Staying involved, keeping the conversation open, and bringing in the bank or Adult Protective Services early gives your parent a better chance of keeping what they’ve built.

Guardio doesn’t spot or stop abuse by a family member or caregiver, but it covers a related risk: scams that reach your parent online. Browsing protection on your computer and phone blocks phishing and scam sites before they open and explains why, and Email Security flags phishing emails that get past the Gmail spam filter. No tool catches everything.

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