Maryland has enacted a new law giving banks and credit unions the power to freeze suspicious transactions on accounts belonging to older and vulnerable adults, locking up their money for as long as 25 business days while the institution investigates potential fraud.
House Bill 1008, formally titled the Vulnerable Adult Banking Protection Act, takes effect October 1. It authorizes financial institutions to temporarily delay or deny disbursements from accounts when they suspect an account holder age 65 or older, or any adult who lacks the physical or mental capacity to provide for their own daily needs, is being targeted by a scammer.
The law hands banks broad discretion. And while its sponsors frame it as a shield for the elderly, the practical result is that a financial institution can prevent an adult from accessing his or her own money for more than a month, with legal immunity, on nothing more than a good-faith suspicion.
Under the new statute, banks operating in Maryland may place holds of 15 to 25 business days on flagged transactions. They may also notify a designated "trusted contact" listed on the account, provided that contact is not the person suspected of committing the fraud.
Financial institutions are legally required to report suspicious activity to Adult Protective Services or local law enforcement. In exchange, the law shields institutions acting in "good faith" from legal repercussions for delaying transactions or sharing account records with investigators.
That liability shield is the quiet engine of the bill. It removes the one thing that might make a bank think twice before freezing a customer's account: the threat of a lawsuit.
Supporters pointed to real victims. Judith Boivin, a Montgomery County, Maryland, woman, testified in favor of the legislation after losing almost $600,000 from her retirement and savings accounts to fraudsters. Over three months, a scammer posing as law enforcement instructed Boivin to liquidate all of her financial accounts.
Boivin told WMAR, a local ABC affiliate:
"The financial system said this might be a scam, I didn't believe it. This was the FBI. I was asked to be an asset for a crime case."
Her bank suspected the transactions were fraudulent. But under existing law, the institution could not legally prevent Boivin from withdrawing her own funds. By the time the scheme ran its course, nearly six figures of retirement savings were gone, and there is no indication in public reporting that any of the money was recovered or that the fraudster was charged.
Boivin's story is genuinely sympathetic. A retiree, deceived by someone impersonating the FBI, drained her life savings because no one could stop her. That is a real problem. The question is whether the solution Maryland chose creates problems of its own.
Twenty-five business days is not a weekend inconvenience. It is five full weeks on the calendar, potentially longer when holidays intervene. For a retiree living on fixed income, a five-week freeze on account access could mean missed rent, missed medical payments, missed prescriptions.
The law does not appear to include a clear process for the account holder to contest or appeal a hold. It does not specify dollar thresholds or transaction types that trigger the freeze. And it does not identify which state agency will oversee bank compliance or investigate complaints from customers who believe a hold was placed improperly.
Those are not minor details. They are the difference between a law that protects the vulnerable and one that strips them of control over their own finances on a bank employee's say-so.
Consider the incentive structure. A bank that freezes a transaction and turns out to be wrong faces no legal consequences, thanks to the good-faith shield. A bank that lets a transaction go through and turns out to be wrong could face regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage, or litigation from family members. The rational move, every time, is to freeze first and ask questions later.
The law covers two categories: adults 65 and older, and adults who lack the physical or mental capacity to provide for their own daily needs. The first category is a bright line, anyone with a birthday qualifies. The second is far murkier. Who decides whether a customer lacks capacity? The teller? A branch manager? An algorithm?
The statute does not say. And that ambiguity matters, because it means a bank could invoke the law against a 50-year-old with a disability just as easily as against a 90-year-old widow.
Maryland is not acting alone. Lawmakers in North Carolina and Georgia have considered similar legislation aimed at protecting vulnerable Americans from financial exploitation. The details of those efforts, whether they passed, stalled, or failed, are not clear from available reporting. But the direction is unmistakable: state legislatures are increasingly willing to let private financial institutions act as gatekeepers over individual account access.
That trend deserves scrutiny. Banks are not social workers. They are not law enforcement. They are profit-driven corporations with their own institutional interests, and those interests do not always align with the customer sitting across the counter.
Fraud against the elderly is a genuine crisis. The FBI impersonation scheme that cost Judith Boivin her retirement savings is one of thousands of similar cons running at any given time. Families who have watched a parent or grandparent get swindled know the helplessness of standing by while a loved one hands over everything.
But the answer to fraud is better law enforcement, faster prosecution, and tougher penalties for the criminals, not handing banks the unilateral power to lock an elderly person out of her own checking account for five weeks with no meaningful recourse.
Several basic questions remain unaddressed. The year of the October 1 effective date is not stated in public reporting. The governor who signed the bill has not been identified in connection with it. No gubernatorial statement appears on record. And the enforcement mechanism, who polices the banks when they get it wrong, is nowhere to be found.
Those gaps should concern anyone who believes government power requires accountability. A law that gives private institutions quasi-governmental authority over citizens' finances, shields those institutions from liability, and provides no visible appeals process is not a consumer protection measure. It is a blank check.
Protecting the elderly from con artists is a worthy goal. Protecting banks from consequences is not the same thing.
