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Many of us are diligently putting away money into Roth IRA’s, 401k plans, 403b plans and the like so that we can have a large nest-egg to live on during our retirement years. Our parents and grandparents, as a whole, did a great job doing this and are now sitting on a total of $15 trillion in assets cumulatively. Criminals, con artists, and people who don’t have our senior’s best interests in mind know this fact too and are actively working to take your parents money.

We know there are a number of scams out there that target seniors, but there’s an even more dangerous practice going on. Often senior grand parents will get calls from ‘financial professionals’ telling them they would like to take them out to lunch and show them what they have to offer. These ‘experts’ sign up the elderly into inappropriate and high-commission financial investments often leaving them broke. If you have any senior adults in your life, make sure that your parents do not attend any of these free meals, they could end up being the most expensive lunch they ever eat!

If your senior parents were to attend such a meal, they would likely have some really decent food and be pitched a number of different financial products such as reverse mortgages, variable annuities, and universal life insurance. The person making the presentation would likely have claimed to have bogus important sounding title, such as “certified retirement planning specialist,” which in reality means nothing. All of these products have very high commissions and have very high fees. Almost everything they will be pitched is either totally unsuitable for them or just an outright bad financial product.

If your parents do need financial advice, don’t ever send them to a financial planner that solicits their business or that charges a commission on any products sold. Instead visit a fee-only financial planner that you pay for their advice. This way there is no incentive at all for the financial planner to give you advice that’s best for their wallet and not yours.

If your parents are getting into their mid 70’s and older, you need to take an active role in your senior adult’s financial life whether they want you there or not. You have to make sure they aren’t being targeted by any scam artists and that they are still capable of independently managing their finances. You should even take the time to look through their checking account statements every few months to make sure they are not paying for some service they do not need and that they can still balance their checkbook.



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