Financial or Material Abuse

Financial or Material Abuse can be:

·        Being pressurised to lend money to a relative or friends

·        Being charged excessive amounts of money for services

·        People frequently requesting small amounts of money from you

·        Family members moving into your home without your consent and without a prior agreement on sharing costs

·        Pressurising you to sign over your house or property

·        Taking money, cashing a cheque or using credit or debit cards without your permission

·        Pressurising you into changing a will

·        Someone else taking charge of your benefits and not giving you all your money

Financial Abuse is illegal

Here is a brief story to give you an example of financial abuse:

Doris’ grandson James has been helping her to buy her groceries and pay bills. Doris’ has problems remembering her pin number, so she has given it to James to enable him to draw the cash out of her bank account. Initially Doris felt that the arrangement was working well.  However, James has continued to ask for money other than for groceries and bills. Moreover, he has started to regularly take large sums of money out of the account without any receipts for the articles that he has paid for. Doris is a lot worse off than she used to be and is now unable to make ends meet. She can no longer afford to put the heating on in her flat and is unable to buy any new clothes to see her through the winter.