Christopher Liew is a CFP®, CFA Charterholder and former financial advisor. He writes personal finance tips for thousands of daily Canadian readers at Blueprint Financial. As parents and grandparents get older, one of the biggest fears families carry is cognitive decline. It’s frightening on its own, and it’s getting more dangerous. Scammers are better funded, better organized, and now armed with AI tools that can clone a voice or a face. A mind that’s slipping is exactly what they’re looking for. Below, I’ll walk through five money mistakes that can be early warning signs, and what to do about them. Why this matters now According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, close to 487,000 Canadians aged 65 and older were living with diagnosed dementia in the most recent year of national data, and close to 99,000 more were newly diagnosed. That works out to more than 11 new diagnoses every hour. Fraudsters know it too. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre logged over 112,000 fraud reports and more than $704 million in reported losses in 2025, with investment fraud the biggest category by dollar. Declining judgment and a scammer’s script are a terrible combination. 1. Bills go unpaid, or get paid twice This is the one I’d watch first. Someone who paid every bill on time for 50 years suddenly has a late fee on the hydro account, or a stack of unopened envelopes on the kitchen counter. Just as telling is the opposite: the same bill paid twice, or a cheque mailed to a company that already takes a pre-authorized debit. None of this proves anything on its own. Anyone can miss a bill. But when it happens to someone whose whole identity was being organized, that’s a change, and change is what you’re looking for. The fix is boring and it works: move the recurring bills to automatic payment while your parent is still the one setting it up. 2. Unusual withdrawals and a sudden new best friend Large cash withdrawals with no clear purpose, a run of gift-card purchases, or money flowing to someone the family has never met. The sudden generosity is the tell I see most. A parent who was careful with money for decades starts “helping” a new friend, a contractor, or a voice on the phone. As CTV News reported in June, an Ontario senior lost more than $900,000 to a fake crypto platform promoted with an AI deepfake of the prime minister. That scam worked because it built trust over months. Diminished judgment makes that trust much easier to win. If you see this, don’t lead with accusations. Ask to look at the statements together. Shame makes people hide it, and hiding it is how a $2,000 problem turns into a $200,000 one. 3. Saying yes to pitches they used to hang up on If your parent is suddenly entertaining calls from “the bank’s fraud department” or a cold-calling investment firm, that’s a shift in judgment worth taking seriously. The system does have some brakes built in now. Since 2021, the Canadian Securities Administrators have required investment firms to ask every client for a trusted contact person, and firms can place a temporary hold on a transaction if they reasonably believe a client lacks capacity or is being exploited. So name one. Make sure your parent’s advisor has a trusted contact on file, and turn on transaction alerts at the bank. One tax note: if a diagnosis does come, your parent may qualify for the federal disability tax credit (it needs a doctor’s certification and CRA approval, so it isn’t automatic), and the family member providing care may qualify for the Canada caregiver amount as well. I walked through the Disability Tax Credit and 14 other benefits Canadians leave unclaimed in a recent Blueprint Financial video. It’s a good starting point if you’ve suddenly inherited someone else’s paperwork. 4. Confusion about accounts they’ve had for decades Forgetting a PIN once is nothing. Forgetting which bank holds the RRIF, calling the same branch three times with the same question, or handing the debit card and PIN to a neighbour “to save a trip” is something else entirely. The tempting shortcut here is a joint account with an adult child. Be careful with that. The Government of Canada’s own guidance for older adults warns that on a joint account, the other person can take all the money without asking. It can also create a fight with the siblings later, because the surviving joint holder may argue the money was a gift. In most families I work with, I’d rather see a properly drafted power of attorney with clear instructions than a joint account. It does the job with fewer side effects. 5. Sudden changes to a will, beneficiaries, or power of attorney A parent who rewrites a will after one lunch with a new acquaintance, switches an RRSP beneficiary to a caregiver, or signs a fresh power of attorney nobody knew about should set off alarms. Capacity to sign these documents is a legal question, and if it’s challenged later, the entire estate can end up in court. This is exactly why I keep telling readers to get the power of attorney done early. As I wrote for CTVNews.ca in April, it’s the document that lets someone step in without a court application to be appointed, a process that varies by province. Get it signed while capacity isn’t in question, and keep a copy where the family can find it. Final thoughts None of these signs is a diagnosis, and I’m not a doctor. A rough month, a stretch of grief, or a medication change can look identical on a bank statement. But in my experience the money is often where the change shows first, and it’s the part you can actually protect. Look closer, ask kindly, and get the safeguards in place while the person you love can still choose them.
