71 www.rnca.ca ‘Who can you trust?’ (continued) Susan Walsh is Newfoundland and Labrador’s new seniors’ advocate. (Ariana Kelland/CBC) Paul Thomey then discovered there was also an active line of credit in his mother’s name after noticing an automatic monthly payment of $200 coming from her chequing account. “I’m back to Scotiabank. They told me that mom’s line of credit has a limit of $20,000, but she’s $3,000 over her limit,” Paul Thomey said. “Mom started to cry uncontrollably and she said, ‘Paul, what have they got done to me?’” My life was stolen fromme. If you can’t trust your own daughter, who can you trust? Lillian Thomey Lillian Thomey said the Puddisters asked her to open a line of credit to get the driveway paved. She agreed with the understanding that they would make the payments as it was now their home. That didn’t happen. The driveway was paved using money on the line of credit but more was taken than that, and Lillian was the one paying for it all. A total of $8,760 was missing from the credit line in the form of direct withdrawals, the criminal court was told. On July 15, the Puddisters were both sentenced to a 10-month term of house arrest followed by 18 months of supervised probation. The charge of obtaining credit under false pretenses was withdrawn when the couple pleaded guilty to theft. In criminal court, the Crown calculated that Thomey lost $16,873. Judge Bruce Short said this case has broader implications on how other vulnerable individuals should be treated, and what the consequences should be for what he called the “maltreatment” of those people. “I will say to Mr. and Mrs. Puddister, on the one hand, you should consider yourself fortunate for the sentence that you are receiving here today,” Short said. “On the other hand, you should consider yourself very unfortunate that a person put their trust in you and you completely breached that trust and you will never, ever have that trust again. And it is as simple as that, far beyond any penalty that the court can impose on you, you have to live with that.” 44 reported cases of elder fraud But this is not an isolated story. The number of reported allegations of elder financial abuse is growing in Newfoundland and Labrador. Data obtained by CBC News through access to information show there were 44 incidents reported to adult protection in 2021-22. There were 28 cases the previous year, and 34 in 2019-20. And the actual number could be higher —much higher. “We know that the reporting, some people say, is you might get one case for every five that gets reported,” said Newfoundland and Labrador seniors’ advocate Susan Walsh. Walsh, who assumed the role in June, says the majority of financial abuse is by family members. Reporting suspected fraud involving their own child is a difficult decision, she says. “Unfortunately, sometimes seniors may give out their card to a family member to go pick up groceries, etcetera, and don’t even know that all their money has been used from their account,” Walsh said. “You trust your children, but sometimes people hit on hard times and things can happen.” Walsh recommends that seniors give banking access to at least two trusted family members. And it’s not just a problem in Newfoundland and Labrador. “We have seen evidence that this is increasing and that is directly related to the fact that we are in an unprecedented time for intergenerational wealth transfer,” said Jana Ray, chief operating officer with CanAge, an advocacy group for Canadian seniors. Ray says there is approximately $1 trillion worth of assets expected to be transferred between generations over the next several years. “And so what that does is that provides, unfortunately, opportunity for financial exploitation to happen.” Ray says there is no Canada-wide trackingmethod to determine how widespread the problem is. Today, Lillian Thomey shares a bedroom with another elderly woman at a retirement home in Carbonear. She misses watching TV in the evenings. She misses her home. More than that, she’s lost family and her sense of trust. “Her life was stolen from her, and it was absolutely stolen,” said her son Paul Thomey. “It’s as simple as that.” www.cbc.ca Paul Thomey dressed up as Santa Claus to visit his mother, Lillian Thomey, and other residents of Lane's Retirement Living in Carbonear in December 2019. (Submitted by Paul Thomey )
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