AGENCY TESTIMONY
Introduction and overview of elder fraud in New York City
0:10:42
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95 sec
Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez introduces herself and provides an overview of elder fraud issues affecting older adults in New York City. She emphasizes the vulnerability of older adults to financial exploitation and scams, particularly those unfamiliar with technology or from different cultural backgrounds.
- Elder fraud disproportionately affects older adults, especially those unfamiliar with technology or reliant on public benefits
- The older adult population in NYC is growing, with 1.8 million expected by 2030
- The NYC Department for the Aging is expanding programs to address elder fraud
Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
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Good morning.
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Good morning, Cheah Hudson.
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Good morning, Cheah Salam, and members of the city council committees on AG And Public Safety.
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I am Lorraine Cortez Vasquez, Commission of New York City.
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Department for the aging commonly known as NYCA.
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I identify as she, her aya, and Puerto Rican.
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Today, we have an opportunity to address a critical issue that affects the safety of older adults, elder fraud, and scams.
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As thank you.
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As many of you know, as many of you know, older adults are ready a vulnerable population, and unfortunately, are target for criminals seeking to defraud them and to take advantage of their needs at this time in their lives.
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And we have common cause that we want 2 things.
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We want to be able to educate, but at the same time, we want justice for those who perpetrate these crimes.
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As while scams and other other opportunistic crimes affect us all, they do disproportionately affect all the adults.
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Including those unfamiliar with technology, those who need to adapt to new and unfamiliar systems or processes either because they come from a different country of origin or they speak a different language.
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And those reliant on entitlements and other public benefits.
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People pray on those individuals.
