Do you think older folks are easy marks for scammers?
You're wrong.
That stereotype has been demolished by the FTC. In fact, older people are actually more like the cops on the beat who protect everyone by alerting us to criminal activity.
It turns out that older Americans report fraud much more often than people between 20 and 59. This may be because they are targeted more often, but it might also be because older people are smarter about how to report fraud and are more interested in preventing it. Older people are actually far less likely to lose money to scammers than younger people. Maybe this is a case where age and experience really pay off.
Unfortunately though, when older people are scammed, they tend to lose more money than younger folks. The average person in their twenties who reports losing money to fraud has been cheated out of $400, while the average loss for people 80 and over is $1,100.
The most common frauds that older people get taken by are those involving tech support, prizes/sweepstakes/lotteries, the promise of romance, and imposters who claim to be friends, family members, or legitimate businesses.
One of the cruelest frauds perpetrated on older Americans is the “grandparent scam,” where someone calls an older person and pretends to be a grandchild in desperate need of money for medical bills, bail, or some other emergency. Between 2004 and 2015, many of the payments extracted from senior citizens as a result of this scam were made through Western Union, some of whose agents were complicit in the scheme. Some 41,000 people complained to the company about being bilked out of a total of $75 million in these scams. The FTC pursued Western Union over these and similar frauds and, in 2017, the company agreed to pay a massive $586 million settlement.
Older people may also be especially susceptible to healthcare scams and products that claim to reverse aging and cure chronic health conditions. To take but one example, a company called Health Research Labs sold supplements that were billed as treatments for arthritis, joint pain, and cognitive decline. When people ordered the product, they were enrolled in a subscription plan without their consent that resulted in multiple shipments and billing. The FTC and the state of Maine went after Health Research Labs and won a $3.7 million judgment against the company.
While it’s great to know that the FTC pays special attention to scams that target older people, it’s even more encouraging to know that senior Americans are doing a lot to help themselves combat fraud. Their watchfulness helps people of all ages.