Florida Elder Abuse Hotlines and Resources: Who to Call

The Abuse Hotline: Call This First

Florida runs one central intake for abuse, neglect, self-neglect, and financial exploitation of vulnerable adults: the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873 (1-800-96-ABUSE), press 2 for adult reports, answered 24 hours a day. You can also report online at reportabuse.myflfamilies.com, by fax with a written report at 1-800-914-0004, or by TTY at 711 or 1-800-955-8771. The hotline feeds Adult Protective Services, which investigates and arranges protection.

Two things worth knowing before you dial. First, this call is not optional: Florida law requires any person who suspects abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a vulnerable adult to report it, and a good-faith reporter is immune from civil and criminal liability, with your identity kept confidential. Second, the report is stronger when it is specific. Have ready the names and addresses involved, what you observed and when, the accounts or property at risk, and any injuries or changes you have seen. Once a report is assigned, the investigator has up to 24 hours to initiate contact.

If Money Is Being Taken

When the problem is financial, the hotline call still comes first (and the sworn petition for a court freeze makes you certify you made it). But reporting alone does not stop a pending wire or empty-out. Three more levers do:

• The bank itself. Florida law lets banks and investment firms flag and delay suspicious transactions from customers 65 and older, and federal rules push banks to file exploitation reports. Tell the bank’s fraud department what is happening; ask them to note the account.
• The court freeze. A vulnerable adult injunction can freeze accounts and credit lines within days, with no filing fee, even when the account is joint and even when the exploiter is an anonymous online scammer.
• Law enforcement and fraud lines. Exploitation is a felony; report it to local law enforcement, the Attorney General’s fraud line at 1-866-966-7226, and for victims 60 and older the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-372-8311. Internet scams also go to the FBI at ic3.gov. The volunteer-staffed Seniors vs. Crime project (1-800-203-3099) mediates consumer disputes for seniors.

Then comes recovery: the civil case that gets the money back, up to three times what was taken. How that works →

Department of Elder Affairs Resources

Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs runs the state’s aging network, and one number opens all of it: the Elder Helpline, 1-800-963-5337 (1-800-96-ELDER). It routes you to the Area Agency on Aging serving your county, the local hub for care navigation, in-home services, caregiver support, and Medicaid screening. Eleven of these agencies cover the state; our county guides list the one for your area with its direct number.

Three more programs under the same roof matter here. SHINE gives free, unbiased Medicare counseling through trained volunteers. The Senior Medicare Patrol (same Elder Helpline number) helps seniors spot and report Medicare fraud and billing abuse. And the Florida Senior Legal Helpline, 1-888-895-7873, gives free, confidential legal advice to Florida residents 60 and older, weekdays 9:00 to 4:30. The department also keeps a current scam-alert and elder protection page worth bookmarking.

Nursing Home and ALF Complaints

Facility problems have their own channels, and they do different jobs:

• Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, 1-888-831-0404. Free, resident-directed advocates who investigate and resolve complaints for residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and adult family-care homes. They work for the resident, not the state or the facility. Complaints can be filed online.
• Agency for Health Care Administration, 1-888-419-3456. The licensing regulator. Quality-of-care complaints here can trigger inspections and sanctions against the facility.
• The Abuse Hotline, 1-800-962-2873. Suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a resident still goes here, which brings in APS and law enforcement. In Medicaid-funded facilities, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (1-866-966-7226) also investigates patient abuse and neglect.

One honest note about lawsuits: claims about care and treatment at licensed facilities follow their own legal track (Florida’s treble-damages exploitation remedy expressly excludes them). We focus on financial exploitation and estate-side recovery; facility negligence cases belong with a nursing-home litigation firm, and we can point you to the right kind.

Problems With a Guardian

If a professional guardian is mismanaging or exploiting a ward, the state watchdog is the Office of Public and Professional Guardians, complaint line 1-855-305-3030. It registers and disciplines Florida’s professional guardians. A family-member guardian answers to the circuit court that appointed them: the guardianship judge can order accountings, remove the guardian, and freeze assets. Guardianship files are also where exploitation often first surfaces; if you are weighing whether a guardianship is even needed, start with guardianship versus power of attorney.

National Hotlines

• National Elder Fraud Hotline (U.S. Dept. of Justice), 1-833-372-8311. For fraud victims 60 and older; a case manager walks you through reporting to the right agencies. Weekdays 10 to 6 Eastern. (Beware copycats: the real hotline never calls you first.)
• Eldercare Locator, 1-800-677-1116. The federal service that connects any family, anywhere, to local aging services. eldercare.acl.gov
• FTC fraud reporting at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and the CFPB (1-855-411-2372) for complaints against banks plus its free “Managing Someone Else’s Money” guides for agents and caregivers.
• FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov for online scams, with a dedicated elder-fraud track.

What Reporting Does (and Does Not Do)

Every number on this page protects the person: an investigator visits, services get arranged, a facility gets inspected, a scammer gets a case file. What none of them do is get the money back or fix the estate. APS cannot unwind a deed signed under pressure, reverse a beneficiary change, or force a caregiver to return what was taken. That side runs through the courts: the emergency freeze, the recovery suit with treble damages, and, after a death, the rule that strips an abuser of the inheritance. Report first. Then, if real money or property is at stake, get the civil track moving while the trail is warm. That is what the free consult is for.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The 11pm discovery. Reviewing her father’s statements from out of state, a daughter finds months of transfers to a caregiver. She reports online that night at reportabuse.myflfamilies.com, calls the bank’s fraud line in the morning, and books a consult. Within the week a vulnerable adult injunction freezes the joint account, and the recovery demand follows.

The facility complaint that went nowhere. A son’s complaints to the nursing home about his mother’s missing jewelry and confusing bills keep dying at the front desk. The Ombudsman opens a resident-directed complaint, AHCA logs a licensing complaint, and the hotline report brings APS in on the exploitation angle. Three channels, one afternoon of calls.

The scam still in motion. A widower is wiring money weekly to an online "advisor." His son calls the hotline, then the AG’s fraud line, then us. Because the scammer is anonymous, we use Florida’s substitute-service rules to get the injunction anyway, and the next wire never leaves.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §415.1034 (any person must immediately report known or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a vulnerable adult to the central abuse hotline; report contents); §415.1036 (immunity for good-faith reporters; anti-retaliation presumption); §415.111 (failure to report is a second-degree misdemeanor; a knowingly false report is a third-degree felony); §415.104 (protective investigations); §772.11(1) (the treble-damages civil remedy and its exclusion of claims about care at licensed facilities); §825.1035 (the vulnerable adult injunction and its hotline-report certification); §817.5695 (financial institutions and exploitation of specified adults 65+). All hotline numbers and agency links on this page were verified against the official agency pages on August 3, 2026.

Updated on August 3, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate planning and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Agency numbers and pages change; if a number here fails, start with the Elder Helpline at 1-800-963-5337. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.