A year ago I wrote a column about Mickey Rooney and how he had been robbed of his life savings by a member of his family. In his statement before the U.S. Senate Aging Committee, the 91-year-old movie actor gave heart-rending testimony about how this experience makes a person feel.

In words that gripped listeners, he told them: “For years I suffered silently. I was told to shut up and be quiet; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This kind of financial exploitation of older people, I reported, is the most common form of elder abuse. All kinds of abuse are reprehensible, of course, but this this one has its own nasty aspects.

Fortunately, the Obama administration last summer established a new office to help those subjected to financial abuse. It acts to help not only people who suffer loss at the hands of family members, but those subjected to other kinds of exploitation as well.

The new office is the first ever to take as its main concern the financial well-being of elders. I like to think it will prove an important tool for those older people who cannot protect themselves.

The Office of Financial Protection for Older Americans, as it is called, was made possible by passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

You may remember the struggle led by Elizabeth Warren, now the leading Democratic candidate for Senator from Massachusetts, to establish the Consumer Finanncial Protection Bureau. This new elder protection office has sprung from the larger agency she first created.

The elder protection office can already boast a certain political pedigree. Its director is Hubert Humphrey III, known as Skip, the son of the former Vice-President.

You can admire the fast start made by the elders’ agency last summer. (Much better a start than the Red Sox had this season and last.) In the space of three months, it took care of some five thousand complaints about credit card problems.

This new Office for Older Americans will try to raise public awareness of this abuse problem and bring agencies together to combat it. It will also fight financial exploitation by businesses that prey on older people to make money.

People with credit card and mortgage problems (among others) may call an agency hotline. This service expects to expand and take in other problems such as unfair auto loans.

The hotline number is (855) 411-CFPB (2372). One can also report online at consumerfinance.gov. (On tapping into the latter site I discovered that the agency serves not just older people but others as well — students with loan problems, for example.)

The agency also provides another simple way to access information: the computer address ASK CFPB. I found it a ready source of answers on a wide range of topics.

Here are some of the areas of concern listed by the Office for Older Americans:

* Protection against abuse by agents under power of attorney, court-appointed guardians and other fiduciaries.

* Education about the realities and risks of joint bank accounts and other savings vehicles.

* Protections for those who are reverse mortgage borrowers.

* Specific issues for people living alone, especially older women with less financial experience.

* Increased financial exploitation of people living in residential care facilities.

I owe the above information to Naomi Karp who serves as a policy advisor for the new agency. Writing for a publication of the American Society on Aging, she outlines expectations for governmental action that can only be welcomed by elders and the community at large.