Boom In Tech Support Fraud Targets Older Adults

By Jaya Padmanabhan, Next Avenue

On a busy day last year, 61-year-old Neil (not his real name) got a call from a man who called himself “John” and said he was from Apple
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Tech Support. He claimed to have received a report that Neil’s laptop was infected with a virus and offered to fix the security breach if Neil gave him remote access to his computer. Distracted by a dozen demands on his time, Neil agreed.

That was the beginning of a harrowing few hours with a practiced swindler. As John urgently warned that the virus threatened to corrupt and delete data and disrupt Neil’s life, Neil grew increasingly anxious and agreed to pay the man on the phone hundreds of dollars to fix the problem.

The virus, of course, did not exist and “John” did not work for Apple. Neil was the victim of internet fraud, specifically a “tech support” fraud that preys on older adults; a fraud that bilked almost 14,000 people out of nearly $240 million in 2021 alone.

Steep Rise in Online Crime Target
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ing Older Adults

As internet use has become more ubiquitous, the share of older adults adopting technology has markedly increased in the last decade. However, for many it’s like a learning a whole new language. Threats of viruses and malware, such as worms, trojans, bots and spyware, are profoundly confounding, and when a seemingly kind, disembodied voice on the phone offers to fix dreaded “infections,” it’s all too easy to succumb to false…