Seniors resist yielding self-sufficiency. Yet because older people often have substantial assets and are justifiably concerned about outliving their resources, funding long-term care bills and protecting their assets, the senior markets can be ground-zero for the unscrupulous; prime prospects for example, for seminars (fly-by-night or otherwise) on Medi-Cal qualification, long-term care coverage, and estate planning with life insurance and annuities.

The California Department of Social Services and U.S. General Accounting Office report an estimated 225,000 incidents of adult abuse in California in 1996, but even more such incidents, it is thought, go unreported. Either from the shame of being scammed or the fear of being judged mentally incompetent, seniors tend to be quiet about their losses. Worse, older victims are often deceased when instances of fraud are discovered. Moreover, the Journal of the American Medical Association has learned that mortality rates among seniors who have been victims of financial abuse are considerably higher than the rest of the elderly population. As a result, relatively few of these cases are ever prosecuted.

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