We have a customer that we are positive is being scammed. We have talked to him until we are blue in the face and he will not listen. He came in today wanting to get a loan to send to this "person" he is talking to. We denied him a loan because we know it is a scam. We have contacted adult protective services. He got angry with us today because we would not issue him a loan. He left but stated he would just get a cash advance off of his credit card. Are we allowed to deny him a cash advance due to us believing he is being scammed?

I would not want to give him a cash advance only for him and his daughter to return at a later date angry because we knew he was being scammed and went ahead and did the cash advance for him.

And yes, we probably need to close his account, however, he is 80 years old. His wife is in a nursing home with alzheimers and his daughter lives out of town. We have asked him to call his daughter and discuss this with her but he refuses.

I cannot speak on the cash advance I am sorry. I am not quite there with my knowledge in this area.

I think if you have contacted APS and tried working with the family you may not have very many options left. Closing the account does seem a little "sad" but at the same time it may make business sense. I only comment to emphasize taking and keeping notes and being able to show that you have brought this up the chain to management/executive/board depending on how you report these issues. If you can show that you have tried everything that makes business sense you will be better off for what could happen later.

I hope to hear others thoughts on the topic.

I am unable to opine on the cash advance matter, but we have had similar situations and will generally close the account. It's simply not worth the brain damage. You have done your job and it's more than likely time to move on.

Sometimes those darn cash advance machines stop working for some reason....must be a network issue or an update...

Well, just to give an update, he did come back in for a cash advance and our BSA officer ended up talking with him. She did eventually get through to him and convince him that it was a scam. Fast forward to today, he came back into the branch with his daughter who stated she was moving him in with her today. Which is probably for the best. She lives out of town, so eventually his accounts will be closed, but thankfully we were able to stop him from giving some lowlife a bunch of money. I am so happy he finally talked with his daughter!

And we didn't have to let him know our cash advance machines were broken......

It is nice to see a good outcome.

great idea...

Also look at your state laws. Since 2017 a Texas bank can - under certain circumstances- freeze an elders account when it is believed that person is being exploited. That's without a court order. Your state may have something similar.

Andy, Oregon has the same type of law.

Personally, in a situation like this I'd refuse to perform any transactions that we could.

Washington has a similar law as well. I believe ours is a five day hold and we have used it before in the past. Makes it easier to not have to guess what product/service they are going to ask for next when it's all shut down!

Definitely recommend that anyone else in the same situation look up vulnerable adult or elder financial exploitation laws in your state.

-K

Almost every bank has elderly customers, and every bank has been or will be faced with similar sad situations. So every bank ought to have or be developing policy and procedures around such situations.