If You Are Navigating Elder Abuse in Virginia , Start Here
This page is for families, not attorneys, not policy researchers. For the person who just found something that does not add up, or who has known for years that something was wrong and never knew where to take it.
What Is Happening to Your Elder May Have a Name
It does not always look like theft. Sometimes it looks like a power of attorney signed at the right moment, or a beneficiary change no one was told about, or an estate that closes before anyone thinks to ask questions. A family member who started managing the finances and somehow the elder stopped having access to their own money. These things have a name, financial exploitation, and it means the use of manipulation, coercion, deception, or legal authority to take money, property, or assets from an older adult, usually by someone they trusted.
In Virginia, it is happening at a scale most people do not know about. The Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services documented substantiated financial exploitation reports rising from nearly 1,700 cases in 2022 to over 2,300 in 2024, a 30 percent increase in a single year following a 20 percent rise the year before. Research cited by Blake Files Forensic Solutions and reported in The Roanoke Star estimates Virginia seniors may be losing over $3 billion annually, yet for every 23 incidents that occur, only one is ever reported. The FBI’s 2024 Elder Fraud Report ranked Virginia eleventh in the nation for elder fraud losses, with over $106 million lost by Virginians aged 60 and older in a single year, and that is only what was reported.
If you have a feeling something is wrong, trust it.
Most Elder Abuse Does Not Come from Strangers. It Comes from Family.
This is the part no one wants to say out loud, but it has to be said because it is the reason so many cases go unreported, why so many families stay silent, and why the systems designed to intervene keep looking the wrong direction.
The National Center on Elder Abuse reports that 90 percent of elder abuse is perpetrated by family members, most often spouses, partners, or adult children. The National Council on Aging found that in almost 60 percent of elder abuse and neglect incidents the perpetrator is a family member, and two-thirds of the time it is an adult child or spouse. A 2019 study out of the University of Southern California examining calls to the National Center on Elder Abuse resource hotline found that financial and emotional abuse are the forms most commonly committed by family members, and about 32 percent of those family members were committing more than one type of abuse simultaneously. The Senior List reports that elder abuse affects as many as one in six older adults every year, and most of them know the person doing it.
The American Bar Association’s 2024 Elder Justice report found that between 70 and 90 percent of perpetrators are known to the person they are harming. The relationship itself, the love, the dependency, the fear of losing a caregiver, the embarrassment, is what keeps most elders from ever saying anything, and many will deny it if asked directly.
That is the thing systems keep missing. They wait for the elder to report and look for the elder to say the words out loud, but an elder who loves the person harming them, or who depends on that person for daily care, will not always ask for help, will not always name it, and may protect the very person who is taking from them. The burden cannot fall entirely on the elder to come forward. The courts, APS, probate offices, law enforcement agencies, and insurance companies surrounding that elder have to be built to catch what the elder cannot bring themselves to say.
Harriett Ann Brown knew what was happening to her. She said so to the people she trusted, and the systems around her were not built to receive her words as evidence. That is what this campaign is working to change.
Signs to Watch For
The Virginia State Corporation Commission identifies sudden or unexplained changes to wills, trusts, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations, retirement accounts, or insurance policies as red flags, especially when documents that used to exist suddenly cannot be found. Watch for unexplained transfers of money or property, and for a sudden shift in how an elder feels about someone they were once close to.
In family situations specifically, pay attention when an adult child or relative is controlling the elder’s mail, phone calls, or bank accounts, or when the elder is being kept away from other family members. When a power of attorney is being used in ways the elder does not know about or did not authorize. When beneficiary designations have changed without the elder ever bringing it up. When the elder seems afraid of someone they once trusted, or when someone is using the elder’s home address on legal documents while not actually living there. That is not an oversight. That is a pattern.
Where to Report in Virginia
Virginia Adult Protective Services
APS is required by law to investigate reports of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. The call is confidential.
Phone: 1-888-832-3858
Online: dars.virginia.gov/aps
Virginia Attorney General — Elder Abuse Investigation Center
In June 2024, Attorney General Jason Miyares opened Virginia’s first Elder Abuse Investigation Center, designed to bring law enforcement, social services, and financial professionals together on exploitation cases.
Phone: (804) 786-2071
Address: 202 N. 9th Street, Richmond, VA 23219
Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS)
The state agency that oversees APS statewide.
Website: dars.virginia.gov
Virginia State Corporation Commission — Securities Division
For exploitation involving investment accounts, insurance policies, or securities.
Phone: (804) 371-9051 or 1-800-552-7945
Email: SRF_General@scc.virginia.gov
FBI Elder Fraud Hotline
For fraud and exploitation that may have federal dimensions.
Phone: 1-833-FRAUD-11
Online: tips.fbi.gov
Virginia Bureau of Insurance
For complaints about insurance policies, beneficiary changes, or how an insurer handled a claim.
Website: scc.virginia.gov/pages/Bureau-of-Insurance
If You Are Being Retaliated Against for Protecting an Elder
If you are a caregiver, a court-appointed guardian, or a family member who stepped in to protect someone and now you are facing harassment, threats, or a legal complaint filed against you, document everything. Every filing, every date, every person who was present.
Virginia law does not currently require a magistrate to check whether a protective order exists before issuing a warrant against the people that order protects, which means a judge’s protective order and a magistrate’s arrest warrant can exist on the same day and both be called legally valid. That is not a hypothetical. It happened, and it is part of why this campaign exists. You are not alone in having experienced it.
Know Your Rights Under Virginia FOIA
If you need records from a police department, court, or state agency, whether that is body camera footage, incident reports, APS referral records, or court filings, you have the right to request them under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, Va. Code §2.2-3700 et seq. The agency has five business days to respond. They must produce the records, cite a specific legal exemption in writing, or notify you of an extension. Silence is not a compliant response under Virginia law.
If an agency goes silent, you can file a complaint with the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council.
Email: foiacouncil@dls.virginia.gov
Phone: (804) 698-1810
We know this process firsthand. It took two years and a resubmission with a sworn affidavit to get footage that proved what happened to our family. We documented every step, and you can too.
You Are Not Alone in This
If you are in the middle of this right now and do not know where to start, the Share Your Story page exists for you, not because your story has to become public, but because knowing you are not the only one matters, and because every family that comes forward makes the case stronger for the ones who come after.
Harriett Ann Brown knew what was happening to her. She named it to the people she loved, and she deserved a system that took her at her word. That system does not fully exist yet. We are building it.
Do Right By Elders 