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The free tool below runs entirely in this browser — no account, nothing stored or transmitted. Redact anything you would not want kept before you type it.
Open the companion tool →Why the form beats the training
Detection is the weakest link in this whole problem. A cloned voice, a spoofed number, and one real detail about the account will beat a well-meaning person's judgment often enough that a family plan should not depend on it. An institution that already suspects something — an unusual withdrawal, a new payee, an address change followed by a transfer — has both the visibility and the authority to pause.
A trusted contact gives it permission to use that authority. Brokerage firms are required to make reasonable efforts to obtain one when a non-institutional account is opened or updated, and many banks and credit unions offer an equivalent voluntarily. It is not a power of attorney: the named person cannot trade, withdraw, or make decisions, and being named does not make them a guardian or an executor. That limitation is exactly why it is easy for an older relative to agree to.
The protocol
- List every financial account: bank, credit union, brokerage, retirement, pension, annuity, and any account a bill is paid from.
- For each one, ask the same question — can I add a trusted contact, and how? Brokerages have a defined process; banks and credit unions may call it an authorized contact, a call-back contact, or an account alert contact.
- Choose the person together. It can be a family member, an attorney, or an accountant; more than one is usually allowed, and it can be changed at any time.
- Ask what the institution will actually do: will it delay an unusual withdrawal, place a hold, notify the contact, and in what circumstances.
- Turn on the alerts that need nobody's judgment — transaction notifications by text or email, and alerts on large transfers or on address and payee changes.
- Write the numbers down where they will be used: each institution's fraud line from its own statement or website, the trusted contact's number, and the family callback code if you have one. Keep a copy on the fridge and one in the phone's contacts.
- Review the list once a year, and after any death, move, divorce, or new account.
What the tool does
Build a trusted-contact setup plan across every account: what to ask each institution, what the contact can and cannot do, and the numbers to keep where they will be used. It stores nothing and sends nothing.
Limit first: This is a planning aid, not legal or financial advice, and it creates no authority over any account. Options and requirements differ by institution, account type, and country, and a power of attorney, guardianship, or joint account is a separate legal step.
Open the companion tool →One human next step
If you suspect an older relative is being targeted right now, call the institution's fraud line using the number on the statement — never a number someone gave you — and ask what can be paused today. Suspected elder financial exploitation can also be reported to Adult Protective Services through the Eldercare Locator (1-800-677-1116, US), and scams to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Research log and safety checks
AI-assist path: not applicable. The artifact is a completed form plus a list of numbers held by institutions; nothing about that is improved by a model's judgment, and an automated assessment of a person's vulnerability would be inappropriate and unverifiable (§1.2 UIC-10, §0.5d). §6.9 disclosed: no assist path — the value is institutional routing and a dated record. §6.10: not a frontier-pace topic. §0.5a: category is protected — competence framing, no urgency, and the buyer is the caregiver (§0.6b).
§0.5 protection result: category is elder-protection; crisis-adjacent: no; fear/urgency/scarcity toolkit used: no. The protective function is free and the paid feature is convenience only.