Your first priority should be to contact Adult Protective Services and law enforcement if you suspect financial abuse. Below are some other resources that may be able to help with specific situations.
If you suspect that a care team member or volunteer of the assisted living community or nursing home may be financially abusing your loved one, report your concerns to the administrator or the staff person responsible for receiving reports of abuse. If the problem is not resolved, ask for information about the grievance procedure and follow the steps to file a grievance. If you are not satisfied with the administrator’s response, you can find out which board or individual the administrator reports to and file a complaint with that board against the assisted living community or nursing home.
If your loved one lives in a nursing home or an assisted living community, you can file a complaint with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees Medicare-certified or Medicaid-certified nursing homes. Contact information for filing a complaint in Texas can be found here: www.hhs.texas.gov.
If you believe a staff member or care team member may be the perpetrator, you can also contact the state licensing board that licenses that person. This may be Texas Health and Human Services or another licensing board.
If the situation involved a scam, you can report it to the Texas Attorney General at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/seniors-and-elderly or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at reportfraud.ftc.gov. The FTC’s website also has information about identifying and responding to scams, including scams that target older people at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/faq.
If the scam used the U.S. mail service, report it to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) at 1-877-876-2455 or uspis.gov/report.
If you suspect that a Social Security representative payee is misusing your loved one’s Social Security benefits, contact the local Social Security office. You can find contact information for your local office at ssa.gov/locator. You can also call the main Social Security Administration line at 1-800-772-1213 to file a report.
If you suspect that a fiduciary appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is misusing your loved one’s benefits, contact the Department of Veterans Affairs. You can find contact information at www.va.gov/contact-us/. For more information about the VA fiduciary program, visit benefits.va.gov/fiduciary.
If you suspect that a guardian or conservator is misusing your loved one’s funds or property, contact the court that appointed your loved one’s guardian or conservator. Many courts have procedures for receiving and investigating complaints.
If the financial abuse involved a financial account, work with your loved one to contact their bank, credit union or other financial services provider and file a report. If you believe a staff member at the financial institution may be the perpetrator, you can find out which federal and state agencies regulate the financial institution and file a report with those agencies. After all other reporting, including to law enforcement and relevant federal and state agencies, it would be helpful to add your report to this AARP website, so that others can learn about scams and financial abuse happening in your area: https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/tracking-map/?Intcmp=AE-FRDSC-ABT-MAP/.