Friday, November 19, 2010

GAO report on Guardianships

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d101046.pdf

They did a study back in September and to read it, you'll need a box of tissues.  It's truly horrifying what guardians do to the elderly and disabled.  I found this on page one:

Using two fictitious identities—one with bad credit and one with the Social Security number of a deceased person—GAO obtained guardianship certification or met certification requirements in the four states where we applied: Illinois, Nevada, New York, and North Carolina. Though certification is intended to provide assurance that guardians are qualified to fulfill their role, none of the courts or certification organizations utilized by these states checked the credit history or validated the Social Security number of the fictitious applicants. An individual who is financially overextended is at a higher risk of engaging in illegal acts to generate funds. In addition, people with criminal convictions could easily conceal their pasts by stealing a deceased person’s identity. The tests raise questions about the effectiveness of these four state certification programs.

They're basically saying that to get certified in IL then it's as easy as opening a box of cracker jack and pulling out the prize.  Why does that not surprise me? 

AND why didn't the GAO look at Devon Bank's court docket of guardianships that I published online?  That would certainly raise a brow.  (Well, in their defense, I didn't publish it until October so, I'm going to let them slide.  Now I know they're googling guardianships though.)

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