Summary
Reports of older adults losing over $100,000 to scams have tripled since 2020, per the FTC, with 4,600 cases in 2023 compared to 1,300 in 2020.
Older Americans lost $1.9 billion to fraud last year, with the actual losses likely closer to $62 billion due to underreporting.
Common scams include romance, investment (notably fake cryptocurrency), and imposter scams. The psychological and financial toll is severe, especially for retirees.
Experts urge vigilance against red flags like urgent demands, social isolation tactics, and unusual payment requests like gift cards or cryptocurrency.
I’d bet that a good number of older people who fall for these scams are people whose interpersonal relationships have become thinner over the years, making the scams more attractive as personal contact.
When they were younger, and had people around them more often, these kind of scams might also have come up, and they might have fallen for the scams then, too, except for being able to talk to people more readily and have someone say that it doesn’t sound right.
So it’s a combination of “I’ve always been open to falling for scams” and “I have a weaker community support system now.”
There is also the loss of mental acuity with age. I’ve seen a lot of people mentally regress as they hit their 60’s.
You also have people who may not be aware of how some systems work because they’ve never had to deal with them while the rest of the world has. I’ve seen people this year struggle using my car because they didn’t know you have to press the brake when you push the start button, as their cars still use keys.