Protect Our Parents was created to help other families understand the prevalence and dynamics of financial exploitation, undue influence, estate and trust fraud that occurs late in life. My name is Monica, a wife and mother of four adult children, founder of Protect Our Parents. Raised in a tight-knit family, it was shocking to learn of the betrayal of my 78-year-old father at the hands of a famil
y member and trusted caregiver. I never imagined my father could be the victim of elder abuse and family betrayal. Once this happened, I discovered that both a parent and their adult children have little protection from injustice when the exploiter is someone they know and trust. Understanding the cause of senior abuse is just one aspect of the challenge in preventing trust and estate frauds and in mitigating abuse and exploitations. Equally critical to protecting our older parents and families is to know how state agencies, lawyers and the county-based Probate Courts can use family troubles for profit when problems go unresolved and third-party intervention is sought. The outcome of elder abuse is often estate and trust fraud, whether committed by family or court-appointed guardianship and/or conservatorship. These problems re about estate plans and trusts designed to protect the owner but instead are used to transfer wealth disproportionately within a family or from a family to the legal community and third-party businesses. Many people don't realize that family members who step in to help loved ones often become victimized themselves through the same tactics of gaslighting, alienation as well as through defamation and criminal protective orders. This occurs by the perpetrators and the legal community alike. Perpetrators sometimes use "capacity" as a shield of protection and the "complicity of silence" by the older parent also becomes an issue when they're afraid to speak up i fear of betraying those they know. This often makes the situation worse. The complicity of silence is the breeding ground in which undue influence and coercive control tactics will continue to flourish. The risks and high cost of guardianship fare high for the older generation when families seek help from Adult Protective Services, lawyers and county-based Probate Courts. It also occurs from hospital settings under varying circumstances. Without the knowledge of how these systems operate in practice, families can be susceptible to predatory behaviors by the same people in place to protect us. Older Americans have always been a target for exploitation because they control over $20 Trillion dollars. The greatest transfer of wealth will be occuring over the next thirty years amid an aging population often referred to as the Silver Tsunami. Old age and the trust economy is an enormous growth industry that attracts predatory people. At the heart of the matter is the financial infrastructure and the county-based Probate Courts that encourage profiting off the elderly and their families. What I learned from my experience and over ten years of research and advocacy, is that estate plans do not provide protection from disgruntled family members, predatory people, professionals and the county-based Probate Courts. Often seeking help from agencies, lawyers and the county-based Probate Courts makes matter worse. The system is designed to extract generational wealth from our parents and our families. The emotional and financial devastation spans generations. There's no incentive to fix the problem. We need to cultivate awareness on the front-end of the problem and limit third party interventions and state intrusions into family matters. Welcome to Protect Our Parents. Please visit AboutTrusts.org for more details and suggestions.
~Monica
