AARP Pushes For New Anti-Fraud Law

In August 2021, Kate Kleinert, then a 68-year-old widow living outside of Philadelphia, received a Facebook friend request from a handsome man wearing a warm smile and a doctor’s coat.

He said his name was “Tony,” and soon he was calling her daily and professing his love for her. Kleinert, feeling isolated during the pandemic, was flattered.

Three months in, he started asking for money—first a $100 gift card for his “daughter,” then $10,000 so he could bribe an official to leave Iraq, where he claimed to be working as a doctor on a United Nations’ mission.

“I wasn’t looking for any romance,” she says. “He said he had read my profile ... and would like to get to know me. And for whatever reason, I went ahead and hit okay.”

By the time she realized he was a criminal, she was out $39,000.

Kleinert is now on a crusade to educate others about this kind of fraud, telling her story publicly and even starring in an AARP video about such scams.

Her story is also being highlighted by AARP Pennsylvania in a push to enact anti-fraud legislation in Harrisburg this year. A key priority is a “report and hold” bill, which would require employees of banks and other financial institutions to put a hold on suspicious money transfers for at least seven days if they suspect a person 60 or older is a victim of fraud.

The measure would also require banks to alert trusted family members and disclose such incidents to law enforcement, state officials or local Area Agencies on Aging. A version of the bill passed the state House last year but stalled in the Senate.

Lawmakers on the Senate banking and aging committees wanted more time to work on the bill and have signaled it will be a priority this year, says Teresa Osborne, director of state advocacy for AARP Pennsylvania. She notes that more than 40 other states have passed similar “report and hold” bills.

Hitting pause can help

Fraud has become “a national epidemic,” says Seth Boffeli, senior adviser of fraud prevention programs for AARP. In 2023, consumers in Pennsylvania reported 74,772 cases of fraud, totaling nearly $237 million in losses, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Identity fraud and imposter schemes, like Kleinert’s case, were among the top scams reported to the FTC that year.

AARP Pennsylvania is working to tackle the problem in multiple ways, including offering fraud prevention presentations and working with the state’s new attorney general to make the issue a priority. But the legislative push is key to the group’s efforts this year, Osborne says, because there’s currently no recourse in Pennsylvania if a bank suspects that an older person is the victim of a scam.

“They might say, ‘Look, are you sure you want to do this? This might be fraud,’ ” she says. But if the customer insists, they are generally unable to stop the transaction.

A temporary transaction freeze can slow things down and give investigators and family members a chance to get involved. It can also give the target of a scam time to reconsider, says Boffeli.

“The more time you can get either off the phone with the criminal or away from your computer, the more opportunity you have ... to exit that heightened emotional state,” he says. That gives people a chance to realize, “ ‘Wait a minute, this doesn’t really make sense.’ ”

When Kleinert withdrew $10,000 in cash from the bank for “Tony,” bank officials didn’t ask her anything about the transaction. “The teller was only concerned that someone should walk me out to my car since I was carrying so much cash,” she recalls.

Now 71 and living in Lancaster County, Kleinert overcame her own shame about the incident and has spoken about it to various media outlets. As a volunteer with AARP Pennsylvania’s fraud prevention team, she also shares her story with other older adults, law enforcement and elected officials. Part of her message to other victims: “You are not stupid for having fallen for this. These people are trained and are excellent at what they do.”

Cristina Rouvalis, a writer based in Pennsylvania, covers business, health care and other issues. She has written for the Bulletin for more than a decade.

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AG Sunday: Elder Fraud a Key Priority

One of Dave Sunday’s first trials as a prosecutor in the York County District Attorney’s office involved a contractor who put sealant on an older man’s driveway.

The man had dementia, Sunday says, and the contractor kept offering—and getting paid—to do the same job repeatedly over the course of several weeks.

Sunday, now Pennsylvania’s attorney general after winning election in November, was incensed and built a case against the contractor using financial records and neighbors’ testimony. He won a conviction and a jail sentence.

That case prompted Sunday to work with others in creating an elder abuse task force in York County to help streamline prosecutions and educate older adults about scams. He says he’ll continue to make elder abuse a key focus as attorney general.

“We have a duty to protect our seniors, and so that’s something that I’m going to prioritize,” Sunday (R), 49, told the Bulletin. He wants to start by getting input from leaders at AARP Pennsylvania, which hopes to work with him on fraud prevention education, outreach and legislation.

Also of interest:

• 25 Great Ways to Avoid Scams
• 10 Red Flags Your Tax Preparer is a Fraud
• How to Keep a Loved One With Cognitive Decline Safe From Scams