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’m torn. Should I feel bad for these people or should I think that they are old enough to know better and are responsible for their own actions?
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.
You should be mad that the government has done fuck all to stop or hold telecommunications companies responsible for a call from outside the country appearing as the FBI to scam old people.
News outlets: “Gen X/Millenials are about to receive the greatest generational wealth transfer in the history of mankind!”
Scammers and Reverse Mortgage brokers: “Lol”
Add retirement homes, healthcare, and once in a lifetime inflation events every decade.
Long ago, I developed these skills:
- If it’s not a physical fucking thing, and you can get it by paying money, you can probably get something close to it for free. Go look for that.
- If it’s a service, and someone is offering to sell it to you without you having asked, it’s either a scam, or you don’t need it anyway.
I’m not saying I’m necessarily immune to these scams, I don’t know what getting older is going to do to my brain. But I can say that I’m vaccinated against them.
I’ve watched like a 500+ hours of Kitboga while working from home.
I AM immune to these scams hahaha
They come up with new and more complicated shit all the time. First step to avoiding them, is knowing you are not immune and being wary of them.
it doesn’t matter how many times you tell them not to click/tap on every goddamn thing that pops up on the screen, and/or call every phone number it tells you to call because “you have a virus!!! CALL THIS NUMBER RIGHT NOWWWWW”
next time you open their device: 99 tabs open, hundreds of notifications, dozens and dozens of new bloatware/spyware/malware/bullshit searchbar apps, etc etc
Man how would it be to have 100,000 to lose to spammers.
That’s a lot of money…
Maybe I should just give up and become a scammer.
Crime pays
I’ve been contemplating becoming a right wing grifter for several years. It’s just too easy.
Not like the fcc is going to exist next year. Go for it, man
