Myers and Stauffer Attends The National Adult Protective Services Association Conference

Strategic Work and New Insights to Protect Seniors

Missy Parks, CFE, AHFI (principal) and Kevin Jenkins, CFE (senior manager) from our Forensic Accounting and Litigation Support (FALS) team recently attended the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) conference. The FALS team has more than 26 years of performing forensic accounting to fight financial fraud and exploitation of seniors, a major focus of the conference attended by roughly 1,000 people from most states. Read on to see what Kevin had to say about why they attended, what their goals were for this conference, the insights they gained, and what lies ahead for the firm around these critical issues.

Financial Exploitation of Older Adults

Financial exploitation can occur through manipulating, misusing, or mishandling another adult’s assets of any kind. Various categories of financial exploitation include, but are not limited to, theft, time share, lottery, romance, and real estate scams. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2024 Internet Crime Report, the section on Elder Fraud says based on complaints filed by those age 60 and older:

There were 147,127 complaints.
Losses totaled $4.9 billion.
Complaints increased 46 percent from 2023.
Losses increased 43 percent from 2023.
Roughly 7,500 who filed complaints lost more than $100,000.
The average loss was $83,000.

The nature and scope of these problems require concerted effort from highly trained individuals and experienced, dedicated teams across the country.

NAPSA Mission and Conference

Missy and Kevin have substantial experience, 25 years and 15 years, respectively, in their fight against fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA). They have worked directly on financial exploitation cases for numerous states over the last three years, which made attending this conference essential. This inclusive event brings together APS professionals and allied experts from diverse fields to share insights, learn together, and build meaningful connections. Each year since 2023, members of our team have attended.

“This conference provides valuable information for APS providers and allied experts to learn and better understand the challenges these professionals are facing,” says Kevin. “This includes information related to battling scams, resources and connections for those working with elderly/dependent adults, and the opportunity for professionals to speak about their concerns.”

Key Presenters

Kitboga is a popular “scam baiter” with a combined four million subscribers/followers on his YouTube channel and Twitch account. His goal is to keep the fraudsters online as long as possible, so fewer elderly/dependent individuals don’t fall for these scams.

Kitboga was inspired to start tricking scammers after learning his grandparents were being taken advantage of by tech scammers. In 2017, he started his scambaiting scenarios and has been successfully gathering intel from scammers and providing this information to law enforcement. He has assisted with returning money back to victims and taught viewers how online scams work.

The keynote speaker was Kevin Carroll, former head athletic trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers, who has been a motivational speaker for more than 20 years working with clients such as Nike, Starbucks, Disney, and a few basketball teams. His message: perseverance – a useful and important encouragement for those working in APS.

Kevin took note of one particularly interesting session: a presentation by a state agency whose organization has a multi-disciplinary team with a unified approach. This allows their APS program to devote resources and address the cases of elder abuse and financial exploitation at all levels from start to finish, including identifying the issue, providing support to the victimized adult, and litigating against alleged perpetrators.

As a CPA firm, our objective is to join these efforts and continue to help as many states and agencies as we can in the fight against financial exploitation.

Goals for Attending the Conference

Missy and Kevin attended the conference with certain goals in mind: learn more about combatting financial exploitation, what additional resources are available to assist elderly/dependent adults scammed, and connect with APS investigators. In addition to the three-day conference, they attended the Financial Exploitation Summit on the final day, which provided valuable information to assist with our forensic audits.

Kevin emphasizes that the most critical trend he and the team are seeing is that financial exploitation continues to grow in volume and dollar amount. Artificial intelligence, which can generate believable and entirely fake videos and voice recordings, will only make things worse. Ongoing work on the front lines, backed by knowledge of the most current developments, will always be necessary. Missy and Kevin continue to learn and expand their specialized knowledge in financial exploitation to stay at the forefront.

Myers and Stauffer

Purpose driven. Exclusive focus. Government programs.

How We Can Help: Established in 1977, Myers and Stauffer is a nationally based consulting and certified public accounting firm. For nearly 50 years, we have worked exclusively with local, state, and federal government health and human-services agencies to help them accomplish their most critical goals for the nation’s most vulnerable people.

Our dedicated accountants and consultants have acquired significant skill and expertise in the forensic accounting field. The team has managed more than 170 individual financial exploitation cases, resulting in millions of dollars identified as potentially misappropriated funds. We are here to help. Contact a member of our team today.