State auditor enlightens seniors on fraud

Trust – it is given and received – often an assumption without much thought. Trust can carry over into personal finances and relationships between investors and advisers.

Fraud and financial concerns prompted more than 200 senior citizens to pack Libby Senior Citizens Center on Tuesday evening. They were there to receive consumer protection education from state auditor John Morrison.

“Given what is going on in the financial world right now, people are thirsting for knowledge about how to protect themselves and that brings them out,” Morrison said.

He said the auditor’s office plays the role of law enforcement on issues pertaining to insurance and investments.

“The best kind of enforcement is to keep the crime from happening, and that comes through public education efforts,” he said.

Through an Investor Protection Trust, the auditor’s office received a grant to produce and provide showings of “Fraud Under the Big Sky” – an informative film that highlights Montana’s two largest investor fraud cases in history.

“The movie gives a good, broad picture of the kinds of things that can go wrong and what people should look out for,” Morrison said.

One of Morrison’s priorities over his tenure as auditor has been consumer protection.

“There might be a higher level of fraud per capita in rural areas,” he said. “But it is not perpetrated from the rural areas.”

He emphasized that the film also gives advice on how to handle investor concerns and to contact his office with such information. It was through concerned investors that the state auditor was able to investigate and prosecute the two cases presented in the film and return more than $1 million lost to fraud.  

The informative tour – aimed at seniors – began in September and has visited more than 25 communities. Morrison estimates that nearly 7,000 people have attended the dinners.

“That is a lot of Montanans,” Morrison said. “I am shocked at how many people we have had at the showings.” 

Darlene Auge was one Libby senior in attendance.

“The issue is trust,” Auge said. “For all of us in this day and age, we need to be more careful, more aware.”

Auge brought her 87-year-old mother, Marjorie Nolan, to the showing. Her hope is that the next time her mother meets with a financial adviser, she will be more informed.

She recalled a recent issue with her insurance provider and said, “If we would have had this presentation then, we would have known the process.”

“The film was very much an eye opener to me,” Auge said. “It really made me aware. Like many things, you take it for granted that people are doing the right thing.”