‘You don’t expect your own children to do this’: Ray’s shocking tale of elder abuse and the son who stole $230,000

Experts call for redesign of financial services and improved Centrelink processes to protect older Australians from fraud

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The fraud began when Ray Baird, then 65, asked his son Peter for help dealing with the bank. In the years that followed, Peter gained access to his dad's bank accounts, diverted Ray's aged pension to his own bank account and ran up debts in his father's name that led to two caveats being put on Ray's home.

By the time the fraud was uncovered and Ray, then 74, began to untangle the lies his son had spun, Peter had taken more than $230,000 from him, including seven years of pension totalling $152,423.33.