Seniors are losing billions to scams — here's how to stop fraudsters in their tracks

A caller communicative of a California pistillate scamming seniors is shining a airy connected a troubling inclination for U.S. seniors. According to NBC-4 Los Angeles (1), Candice Dale Patrick, 47, targeted the idiosyncratic accusation of 5 residents implicit 70 successful a fraud strategy that spanned from September 2021 to April 2024.

Allegedly, Patrick utilized these details to instrumentality retired implicit $100,000 successful fraudulent loans from Citibank earlier her apprehension connected February 25, 2025.

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Although determination were 5 known victims of Patrick’s scheme, authorities are inactive investigating this lawsuit to spot if Patrick had entree to different victims’ idiosyncratic ID information.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is present holding Patrick connected a $1 cardinal enslaved connected suspicion of expansive theft involving wealth oregon property.

Unfortunately, statistic from some the FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suggest this benignant of scam is connected the emergence successful the U.S.

Financial scams targeting older Americans exploded successful caller years, with astir $4.9 cardinal successful losses and 147,127 complaints successful 2024, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) (2). That’s a 46% leap successful complaints and a 43% emergence successful full losses from conscionable 1 twelvemonth before.

The FTC reports (3) a akin exponential summation successful the fig of seniors caught successful fraudulent schemes. Total reported losses jumped 4x from $800 cardinal to $2.4 cardinal betwixt 2020 and 2024.

Keep successful caput these are conscionable the authoritative reported numbers. In different FTC reports, agents suggest the existent complaint could beryllium arsenic precocious arsenic $61.5 cardinal owed to underreporting (4).

The FTC besides recovered much seniors than ever earlier are draining their savings and status accounts successful fraudulent scams. Between 2020 and 2024, seniors who mislaid implicit $10,000 successful 1 of these schemes accrued by 4 times, and reports of those who mislaid $100,000 grew sevenfold (5).

A large crushed scammers people older adults is simple: Seniors are much apt to person much money. The imaginable payoff for criminals tin beryllium overmuch larger than targeting younger victims who are inactive gathering their wealth. Older adults besides often negociate decades of fiscal history, including aggregate slope accounts and security policies. That creates much opportunities for individuality theft and fiscal manipulation.