Tarnished Golden Years: Banks and Credit Unions Commit Financial Elder Abuse
Published On: June 21, 2008
Yet more outrage today when I read the Center for Responsible Lending report entitled “Tarnished Golden Years: Unauthorized Bank and Credit Union Overdraft Fees Threaten Financial Security of Older Americans.” (Read entire report here)
The Center has yet another report, Shredded Security, which reports the following:
As AARP reports this week that bankruptcy among older Americans has doubled since 1991, and as banks raise their overdraft fees and make it easier to hit their account holders with multiple charges, we release findings on how unauthorized overdrafts strip fees from Americans 55 and older at the level of $4.5 billion per year. Nearly $1 billion of that comes from people who are heavily dependent on Social Security income.
Read Shredded Security here
So, bottom line is that people work hard all of their lives, scrimp, save and live on very little Social Security to begin with and the banks and credit unions, in their greed, predatorily steal this money from the elderly. I found an interesting article entitled Financial Elder Abuse on the California Attorney General’s Crime and Violence Prevention Center Safestate.org site.
