Focus On Fraud: Even The Savvy Can Be Swindled In Today’s Scam Environment

We’ve never shied away from highlighting the risk to older adults of being scammed and defrauded. Whether fraudsters are after your personal information or are going directly for your assets, few are safe from a scammer intent on stealing something of value from you. The amount of reported losses in recent years bears this out. According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center, older adults, who reported more losses than any other demographic, averaged a loss of $38,000 per victim in 2025, for a total of over $7 billion in losses, which is 8X the amount of losses reported in 2020.  Even though older adults accounted for only 20% of crime complaints filed (and keep in mind most of these crimes are never reported), they account for 37% of the reported losses. Moreover, the number of victims and the amount of losses are rising, as scammers become more sophisticated and fraudsters target and personalize to hone in on your exact circumstances. So, for example, The Washington Post recently reported how AI models not only easily replicate the voices of trusted loved ones, thereby fooling you into thinking you know with whom you’re talking, but “A capable (AI) model can help research a target, infer what they care about, determine who they’re close to, adopt a convincing role, maintain a believable conversation and adapt when challenged.” Would you be able to discern that you were not speaking to your local longtime bank teller about a security concern but instead an AI agent hoping to create emotional drama and anxiety so that you’ll do something foolish? 

Every month, the technology gets better and better at perpetrating a scam without you realizing it. The list of current scams and schemes continues to grow and become more creative. While the old grandparent scheme is still around (and the voices of your grandchildren are easier to replicate to fool you these days), there are plenty of new schemes as well. There is a wide array of “imposter scams” these days (already defrauding Americans out of close to $2 billion this year alone), where the scammer poses as an official from a trusted organization in your life, such as your bank, the Social Security Administration, law enforcement, or another government official. Ironically preying on your fears of being scammed, these imposters will tell you someone else is trying to defraud you, and they need to help you keep your money safe by transferring it to a different account (after which you’re likely never to see your money again). This is often referred to as the “Your Money Isn’t Safe” Scam. Another more recent scam involves those who are engaged in large financial transactions, such as buying a new home or some other substantial financial purchase. Scammers may be able to infiltrate your email chain for this transaction and revise the wiring instructions, so that your money will disappear into the ether without you even realizing you’ve been scammed. It’s recommended that if you receive a revised set of wiring instructions, you verify the change with a call to a trusted number. Of course, the long-time scams involving such fraud as unsolicited investment or crypto opportunities, romance scams, or tech alerts about computer problems are all still thriving, made all the more difficult to detect because of tech advances that lure you in more easily. There are also newer scams involving AI-generated, life-like “influencers” online, who use convincing anecdotes and stories to scam you into purchasing untested or sham supplements. And there are even scams now targeting travelers who think they’re getting a good hotel deal online, only to show up at the hotel and realize the “reservation” they made was really a fraud perpetrated on them, and no reservation actually exists.

There are ongoing attempts to educate the public, develop guardrails at trusted institutions, and even national legislation to try to fight back and/or recover money that’s been stolen. And there is an array of online hotlines, resources, and advocates who exist to help educate older adults and help older victims of scams seek recourse. Recently, The New York Times highlighted the efforts of banks, sometimes using training programs developed by AARP, to teach bank employees how to look for red flags that may signal a transaction is a scam. There’s federal legislation, already passed by the House but currently sitting in a Senate Committee, called the Financial Exploitation Prevention Act, which specifically empowers financial institutions to pause money withdrawals if they believe financial fraud or exploitation is at play.

There are general websites that have information, recommendations, and further resources to help protect you from a scam or empower you if you think you’ve been scammed. Those include the website https://seniors.hcsk.org/ and The Identity Theft Resource Center. If you think you’ve been scammed in some aspect of the Medicare sign-up process or mischarged for Medicare expenses never actually incurred, you can contact The Senior Medicare Patrol. Social Security has its own online scam reporting system, and the Department of Justice has a special website and hotline for dealing with elder fraud. Experts from all of these resources will tell you that if you ever hope to recover any of your stolen money, time is of the essence, and you can’t let embarrassment get in the way of immediately reporting the fraud as soon as you become aware. The quicker you act, the more possibility that systems can be deployed to stop the fraud before your money is long gone. So, regardless of how savvy and sophisticated you think you are, recognize that none of us is immune from being scammed, and the only way to protect ourselves is to be educated, aware, and ready to act if we detect a scam is underway.