Ill-Intentions Toward a Senior

In April of 2024 I started working with “Susan”. What started out as a typical unpacking job ended with helping her thwart her ill-intentioned ‘helper.’ I share this story so that those of you who have a senior in your life personally or professionally can learn from Susan’s experience.

Susan moved into a new senior living community in 2023. She had some medical issues shortly afterward and was never able to finish unpacking, so she hired me. When I was organizing her file drawers, I noticed her trust had a much older address on it, and there were only two pages of it present. I mentioned it to her so that she could inform the trust attorney of her address change and perhaps request a full copy. She abruptly mentioned that her medical advocate was on her trust. I knew she had a medical advocate, and never heard about anything amiss in their relationship, but I sensed there was a reason she brought this up. I asked Susan if she wanted her advocate on her trust, and she replied, “well not the whole thing.” I don’t get into my clients’ personal business, so I suggested she discuss this with the attorney.

By this point, I had learned that Susan met her medical advocate, “Robin,” in Grand Rapids several years ago. Susan was already established at a senior living community and received a letter in the mail advertising services she needed, so she reached out. Robin helped with errands and visits to doctors, financial planners, and attorneys. She also forwarded tax information to Susan’s accountant. After a few years of this arrangement, Robin suggested Susan move closer so she could help care for her. Susan packed up her condo and moved some 80 miles away.

Her move made sense; it sounded like Robin and Susan had become friends. Susan was divorced, estranged from her sister, and had lost her only child over 10 years ago. She never mentioned friends or other family. I had the impression Robin was it.

In our next work session, she said she wasn’t sure she could afford her apartment. I wasn’t sure why she had moved in if she so quickly felt she could not afford it. I suggested she call her financial planner and confirm she could stay before we continued working on the current apartment. She said she had not been in touch with her financial planner in a couple of years.

She said she’d connect with me after she sorted it out. This didn’t happen for a while, because she had another medical emergency and landed in physical rehab for several weeks.

When we did reconnect, she asked me to help her make various calls, including to the financial planner. She had aphasia and communication could be challenging.

We called the trust attorney to update her contact information and requested a full copy of her trust. She showed me the document. Robin was the beneficiary of all but $50,000 of her $1.8 million trust.

We had a Zoom meeting with her financial planner, and he assured Susan she could afford her apartment. She asked him about making beneficiary changes, as he had originally connected her to the trust attorney. He said changes would not be a problem. At the conclusion of this meeting, he decided it would be best to meet in person and scheduled a meeting for a few days later.
I informed the attorney of the upcoming meeting and Susan’s desires to change her trust, so he would be aware that we’d need to meet with him as well.

A few minutes into our financial planning meeting, Susan’s phone started ringing incessantly. It was across the room, and she said to just ignore it. I finally checked one of the calls, and it was Robin. Susan said not to answer. It was August, and in the 4 months I had worked for Susan, Robin had never called or popped in. I became suspicious that she was calling at the very time we were in this meeting that only the financial planner and attorney should know about. Later Susan showed me her phone… Robin had called 14 times!

After our meeting, Susan asked me to meet her at the bank. Susan couldn’t remember who the beneficiary of her bank account was, so we inquired and found out it was Robin. Susan asked that the accounts be included in her trust instead. Yes, her trust was currently also bequeathed to Robin, but her plan was to change that.

At this point I was helping Susan reconcile her bank statements as well and saw no payments to Robin or her business. Maybe they had agreed that in exchange for being a medical advocate and helping with errands, Robin would be the beneficiary of her trust.
I inquired with the Jackson County Department of Aging about medical advocates. I learned that medical advocates are hard to come by for those who have no family, so vulnerable seniors are somewhat at the mercy of whoever will assist them.

I reached out to my attorney, who said Robin and Susan may have had an agreement offering her trust as payment. Even though the situation appeared to be a conflict of interest, its legality depended on their agreed terms. There is not much legislation to protect vulnerable seniors in situations like this.

The Sunday after this very eventful week, Susan heard from Robin again, asking to visit. This was Robin’s first visit in the 15 months since Susan had moved to be closer. Luckily, it was social, and nothing was brought up about the trust.

Susan wanted all her invested assets to be consolidated at her bank. She asked her financial planner to start making the transfers, which meant he was out of future commissions, and may be why he said he doubted his attorney friend would help amend her trust. Susan started working with the wealth advisor at the bank instead, who recommended a new attorney.

While changes were being made to her trust and her investments were being transferred, I helped Susan get an iPhone. I manually transferred her contacts and learned about other people in her life. She had two cousins in the Grand Rapids area. We texted both with her new number, and her cousin, “Chris,” called right away. Susan lit up…they had not been in touch for years and her cousin had no idea where she was or how to contact her.

This reconnection was good timing, because shortly afterward Susan called and said she was hospitalized due to a fall. I met her in the emergency room, and she asked me if I would be her new medical advocate. I was not comfortable taking on this role, and suggested we talk with her cousins. We notified Robin and her cousins about her fall. Robin wanted to visit, but Susan declined. Her cousin Chris called, and I was able to start the conversation about what I thought might be going on with Robin and let her know that Susan wanted a new medical advocate.

A couple of days later, Robin called me and left a voicemail wanting to meet and learn more about my business so she could refer me to her other clients. I was not interested. (Probably because I have seen too many crime shows!) She then texted and told me she had been keeping Susan safe and healthy all these years. I copied all the communication from Robin and sent it to Susan’s attorney. I had never been in the middle of something like this and wanted to cover my bases.

Susan’s cousin, Chris, came to visit and agreed to be Susan’s Durable Power of Attorney and Medical Advocate. Her other cousin agreed to be next in line should Chris be unable to perform those duties.

It took 12 weeks, but Susan and her cousins were finally in the attorney’s office signing the amended trust. The attorney sent a letter to Robin asking that any papers or items belonging to Susan be returned to his office. I suspected she may have Susan’s tax information, since Susan didn’t have any in her apartment. To this day, nothing has been returned.

Robin was now off the trust. In her place, the money was entrusted to an association that helps children and families with the condition that took Susan’s only child.

Robin started off as a medical advocate and befriended Susan. But it seemed that after the trust was signed, she was no longer in her life in the same way and didn’t fulfill the expectations Susan had for their relationship.

Her cousin told me she had reached out to Robin a few years before the reconnection, asking for Susan’s new address and phone number. Robin declined, stating that Susan did not want her whereabouts known. Susan was estranged from her sister, so this was partially true. But Susan could have made those wishes known to her cousin herself.

Susan continued having medical issues. Eleven months after we started working together, I helped Susan move to an assisted living community closer to her cousins. It was a bittersweet goodbye, but now she had family who could look after her.

In my 13 years of helping seniors downsize and move, this was the first time I had been involved with someone’s trust. It was stressful; Susan’s medical emergencies threatened our chances of making these changes on time. I now look twice when I see other seniors with “helpers” and wonder: Has that helper been properly vetted? Is that senior being taken advantage of?

If you suspect foul play in a senior’s life, you can contact https://www.elderlawofmi.org/services/