Defrauding seniors has long been a favorite pastime of scammers — especially during the holiday season — but it has really picked up steam in recent years. Elder fraud losses have increased nearly five-fold since 2017, according to data from the FBI, and rose by roughly three-quarters last year alone.
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The FBI’s elder fraud report, released earlier this year, found that in 2021, more than 92,000 victims over the age of 60 reported losses of $1.7 billion to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The dollar figure, the most recent available, represented a 74% increase from the previous year.
A recent analysis of the data conducted by The Motley Fool uncovered these other key findings:
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Elder fraud losses increased by 391.9% from 2017 to 2021 ($343 million to $1.685 billion).
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The costliest type of scam involving seniors was confidence fraud (including romance scams), with $432 million in total losses in 2021.
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Business email/email account fraud ranked next at $356 million, followed by investment fraud at $239 million.
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Tech support scams resulted in 13,900 victims, more than any other type of elder fraud.
Scams involving elderly people come in many different forms, from creating fake identities to build close relationships with unwitting victims to posing as grandchildren to bilk seniors…
