On May 12 Los Angeles City officials came together with scores of senior citizens at the Felicia Mahood Senior Multipurpose Center in West Los Angeles, to mark Senior Fraud Awareness Day.
The half-day event that included honoring community activists and awareness fair, was dedicated in memory of the late city councilmember Bill Rosendahl who passed away two months ago. Rosendahl was instrumental in having May 15 (which was also his birthday), declared Senior Fraud Awareness Day in the Los Angeles City Council. As such, the event is always held on the Thursday closest to May 15.
While there are many issues affecting seniors, speakers throughout the day highlighted the fact that the number one form of elder abuse is in fact senior fraud. One of the more common scams perpetrated against seniors is the grandparent scam. More than 25,500 seniors reported in 2011 that they sent $110 million to scammers posing as family members who said they had been injured or arrested in a foreign country.
Others scams include foreign lottery scams with over $120 million a year being stolen from seniors in both telemarketing fraud schemes and sweepstakes fraud.
The IRS phone scam is another of the most potent schemes. In 2014, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration received 90,000 complaints from taxpayers who received unsolicited calls demanding payment for back taxes from people fraudulently claiming to be from the IRS.
The list of scams is so great and the need to educate seniors even greater, that Adrienne Omansky, who spent 38 years as a teacher with Los Angeles United School District (LAUSD), became the program director for the Stop Senior Scams Acting Program. Omansky also coordinated the event at the Felicia Mahood Center.
The Stop Senior Scams Acting Program brings together senior performers who travel to senior centers, churches, symposiums, synagogues and libraries to educate people about senior fraud scams.
The materials used in the skits are written by the actors themselves and based on their own and others’ experiences of being victims of senior scams. The humorous skits with serious messages are explained by two former judges in the troupe (you can’t miss them – they’re wearing their black robes).
The performances at the May 12 event were colorful and creative and kept the audience entertained between the official speeches and the recognition ceremonies.
The event was also an opportunity to honor three people in the community, each of whom has contributed to senior fraud awareness. Tobie Stanger, a senior editor at Consumer Reports was recognized for her feature cover story in the November 2015 issue entitled, “A Crying Shame.” The article highlighted the financial elder abuse in America, and how three billion dollars is lost every year to con artists.
Sherri Akers has been a volunteer with the Mar Vista Community Council for eight years and was honored for her work in co-founding Mar Vista’s Aging in Place committee and for connecting with the Stop Senior Scams Acting Program to bring awareness and prevention of senior fraud to the MVCC’s education program.
Also honored at the event was Bill Tokubo, a retired high school administrator from the Gardena School District. Tokubo has been president of the 186th Area Homeowners Association and Neighborhood Watch program since 1992, has worked with both youth and senior communities, and in 2015 became the Stop Senior Scams Acting Program’s outreach coordinator.
The theme of the day’s event was “pass it on,” encouraging attendees to make their friends and families aware of potential scams.
As City Attorney Mike Feuer noted in his address, “This is another one of these moments where we remind ourselves how important our senior citizens are and what a growing part of our population you are. By 2020 a third of the country is going to be comprised of senior citizens. Your needs are our needs, because we’re all going to be senior citizens one day if we’re lucky.”
