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AARP Financial Exploitation-Prevention Training More Than Doubles in June

En español | AARP’s BankSafe program saw a June boom, as the number of frontline staff, call center representatives and other financial sector employees who completed our free financial-exploitation prevention training more than doubled over the previous month. The number of trainees was  up 38 percent from June 2021.

The BankSafe training program uses short, interactive videos and training exercises to help workers at banks, credit unions and other financial organizations spot and stop fraud and exploitation, with a focus on older adults. The platform is estimated to have stopped nearly $117 million from being stolen from older adults to date.

We’d issued a BankSafe Challenge for the month of June, urging the financial sector to better train frontline workers. An estimated 20 percent of older Americans are victims of financial exploitation, with the average victim losing $120,000.

More than 1,000 financial institutions, banks, credit unions and financial advisors use BankSafe’s training, including Chase Bank and SunCoast Credit Union. And nearly 300 organizations have earned the BankSafe Training Seal by developing a financial exploitation reporting policy and putting at least 80 percent of frontline staff through BankSafe’s courses. 

We expanded BankSafe’s training programs into the retail sector earlier this year, with employers like Walgreens and Best Buy agreeing to train their employees to prevent gift card and wire fraud scams. Victims of wire fraud last year reported collectively losing nearly $483 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Gift card scams accounted for another $233 million in losses, with the average victim losing $1,000.

Read our press release, and learn more about how BankSafe is protecting consumers from exploitation.

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