These past few years have brought more than their fair share of challenges, but throughout it all, one group has refused to let the difficult times hold them back – scammers! Fraud & scams are on the rise.
Older adults are often considered high targets for scams and cybercrimes. Older adults tend to be more trusting than younger people and usually have better credit, and more wealth - making them more attractive to scammers.
Many of the crimes that occur in real life happen on the internet too. Credit card fraud, identity theft, embezzlement, and more, all can be - and are being - done online.
Older adults are considered easy targets by criminals because they might not know how to report cybercrimes against them. In some cases, older adults choose not to report their victimization out of feelings of shame and guilt over the scam. The older adult may also fear that their families will lose trust in their ability to continue to manage their own finances.
More than 1 in 10 elderly people in the US fell victim to elder fraud in the last year. That’s almost 9 million incidents of elder fraud occurring every year in total! The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reports the Average loss per older adult scam case is $20,015, and that’s calculated by averaging the mean reported loss. In all 50 states, losses due to elder fraud total $113.7 billion each year.
CA is the #1 state for elder fraud in terms of total losses. CA, the most populous state in the nation, loses the most money to elder fraud, according to CompariTech’s estimates. California lost nearly $11 billion to elder financial exploitation, impacting over 11 percent of the elderly population. That’s over 928,000 cases in total.
Scamicide.com offers some tips on protecting yourself from becoming a victim:
· Decline to provide personal information or credit card information to anyone who contacts you – this includes calls about your vaccination status
· Ignore delivery-company refund e-mails, texts, and calls unless you have specifically requested such a refund and the delivery company communication cites the correct delivery details
· Never provide a credit card number to a company that reaches out to you offering a refund
· Do not accept any job that involves making purchases with your own money
WARNING:
If you believe any correspondence may be malicious, please report it or forward any correspondence to Email.Security@ventura.org.
OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
PLEASE NOTE, GENSON GERIATRICS AND THE VENTURA COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT OF CAMARILLO ARE ONLY RECOMMENDING AND SUGGESTING THIS INFORMATION IN AN EFFORT TO KEEP VIEWERS SAFE – BY NO MEANS, CAN THESE ORGANIZATIONS GUARANTEE YOUR SAFETY AGAINST ANY TYPE OF FRAUD OR CYBER CRIME.
Comentários