AND YET, THESE ARE THE SAME FAMILY MEMBERS...:

The elderly need to beware of lenders--and relatives: Older Americans who seek reverse mortgages need family members and friends to help protect them from being exploited by lenders and even their children. (Lew Sichelman, December 20, 2009, LA Times)

The elderly are victimized to the tune of $2.6 billion a year, according to a recent report from MetLife's Mature Market Institute. And that's a conservative guess because it has been estimated that only one in 25 cases of financial abuse is ever reported to authorities.

At a conference last month of specialists in reverse mortgages, a financial tool that seniors can use to tap into the equity they have in their homes without having to sell or move out, lenders were asked to help uncover ploys and schemes designed to fleece unsuspecting and often overly trusting seniors.

That might seem somewhat ironic when you consider that lenders, especially those dealing in mortgages that don't have to be paid back until the borrower dies or moves away of his own volition, often stand accused of robbing the elderly with their backward loans.

But that's just not the case, says Lisa Nerenberg, an expert in the prevention of elder abuse who told members of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Assn. that most of the time, they're not to blame.

"There's an epidemic of financial elder abuse, but the chief perpetrators aren't lenders. It's family members," says Nerenberg, a consultant who previously headed the San Francisco Consortium for Elder Abuse Prevention.

The MetLife study confirms that fact: "Approximately 60% of the substantiated Adult Protective Services' cases of financial abuse involve an adult child."

...that the Left insists should be allowed to kill the elderly and infirm.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 20, 2009 8:57 AM