Shielding seniors from scams

COLUMBIA — Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer traveled across South Carolina on Friday to launch a new program designed to help protect seniors from scams and fraud by certifying businesses that have met a set of standards.

Senior Shield is a new Web-based resource where seniors can look to find businesses that have agreed to undergo criminal background checks and provided information about consumer histories.

A toll-free hotline also has been established for seniors to call and check if a business is certified by Senior Shield.

"It is time to shut down the South Carolina borders to scam artists who want to prey on our good-hearted senior citizens," Bauer said in a statement. In his position, he oversees the state's Office on Aging.

Assistant U.S. Secretary for Aging Josefina Carbonell said Senior Shield should be a model for other states to duplicate.

"Clearly, our efforts to keep seniors living in their own homes and participating fully in community life are undermined by financial exploitation and consumer fraud," Carbonell said in prepared remarks. "When seniors lose their life savings, homes, and other property through the efforts of scam artists and fraudulent business operations, not only is their ability to remain independent threatened but often their confidence and spirit."

South Carolina is home to 775,000 seniors, a population that is expected to double in the next 15 years. The most common scams reported to the state Department of Consumer Affairs involve magazine subscriptions, home shopping catalogs, foreign money offers, Internet fraud and prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries.

The new program will not be a judge of whether a business provides quality services, only that the business meets an ethical code and has the proper licenses, insurance and is bonded.

Jim Miles, Bauer's chief of staff and former secretary of state, said the lieutenant governor established Senior Shield in response to the Legislature's decree to step up protection for seniors against fraud. No money was attached to the legislation, and Bauer had to get creative.

Senior Shield is a partnership between a nonprofit group with ties to Bauer's office and a private, for-profit company Maryland-based Silver National LLC. Its creation has caused controversy.

A Watchdog report by The Post and Courier earlier this week revealed that the Office on Aging had paid about $85,000 in state funds to create Senior Shield.

State ethics laws prohibit public employees from negotiating with businesses with which they are associated or in which they have an economic interest.

The State Ethics Commission, however, said the line between the Office on Aging and the nonprofit Senior Shield would be crossed only if a government worker makes financial decisions in an official capacity that directly benefit Senior Shield or if he receives compensation from Senior Shield outside his government salary.

Miles, who will act as an intermediary between Bauer's office and the nonprofit for the time being, said Friday that no government workers will make a profit from Senior Shield.

Senior Shield, with its expected contributions from a leading drug store chain and pharmaceutical company, will reimburse the Office on Aging for its start-up money, Miles said. Companies also will have to pay a fee of $160 to $195 to be vetted by the program.

Miles said the program will begin immediately signing up businesses.

Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-799-9051 or ywenger@postandcourier.com.