(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- Americans over the age of 60 are falling for more scams than ever before, with money exploding into the billions. There were at least 92,000 victims who were not too embarrassed to report their ensnarement.
It’s called “elder fraud.” And some victims have lost over $100,000—some close to a million dollars.
One of the newest scams, which seems too unbelievable to fall for, is when a person claiming to be from the DEA calls a “mark” and says their vehicle was involved in a drug bust. And to make it go away, they should pay some cash.
A woman who wished to be unnamed did just that. She paid close to a million dollars to a man speaking in broken English who threatened her with arrest if she did not send him money.
How could anyone fall for something like this? In a taped recording, the man sounded like every stereotypical phone scam.
But it happened.
Since last year, there has been a 74% increase in “elder fraud.” The FBI says that the marks are usually lonely, then they become scared. It’s a form of psychological abuse.
Very few arrests are made, even though the overseas scammers collaborate with people here in the U.S.
According to a newly-published report by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, the over-60s were not only the most likely to become victims of all the age groups studied, but their overall losses were also the highest.
The study discovered that older persons are frequently scammed due to romance scams, tech support fraud, and investment fraud. Furthermore, evidence reveals that businesses have lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to corporate email hack attempts, which were aided unintentionally by employees over the age of 60.
It would be unjust and inaccurate to characterize these attacks as successful merely because a more aged individual was unfortunate enough to be the target. After all, a romantic scam or an email account breach assault makes no distinction between the ages of its victims.
However, a victim’s age may render them vulnerable to some scams, such as romance scams, especially if they have just lost a loved one.
Furthermore, many of us who have older relatives may have discovered that they are inherently more trusting than those of us who have spent more of our lives fighting internet scammers.
Keep an eye on the older people in your life. Warn them, tell them to come to you if they ever receive a call like that.
