Grandparent scams. Romance scams. Credit card and banking scams. Celebrity impersonations. And now, robocalls and deepfake videos that look and sound so real that they can almost fool experts.
Elder scams are nothing new. But artificial intelligence has made them so sophisticated that it’s increasingly more challenging to differentiate fraud from reality. It doesn’t matter how educated and enlightened people think they are. Scammers don’t target your brain, experts say, but your emotions. As one victim, who’s also a colleague, noted, “We felt like we were mugged.”
You may have heard about the New York magazine editor who wrote about being fleeced out of $50,000. She’s smart, educated, and savvy (and once had a weekly business column for the New York Times) and yet she ignored the alarm bells going off in her head. She’s gone public with her story as a warning to others.
Then there’s another colleague, who felt completely helpless as she watched her mother get scammed out of nearly $5,000 in a celebrity impersonation scheme. No matter how often she tried to explain the risks, her mom insisted it really was The Rock sending those text messages and asking for money.
“There will always be an ask, and that’s what we need people to key in on, “ said Amy Nofziger, director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “It’s often a bank account number or some sort of personal financial information.”
The AARP Fraud Watch Network helpline received close to 100,000 calls last year, according to Nofziger. Those calls were not just from people over 50. Many of the roughly 150 to 200 victims who call each day are young adults.
“They’re all smart people. Their brains have never steered them wrong in the past. Criminals hijack the brain and go straight to the emotions,” Nofziger said.
Why it matters
Approximately one in 18 cognitively intact community-dwelling elders are targets of fraud and financial scams each year. Most are over 70, the New York Times reported, and lose an average of nearly $42,000. Research shows that people over 65 may have more difficulty telling legitimate emails apart from phishing emails. In 2022 alone, some 88,000 people 60 and older were taken in by some type of fraud or scam, to the tune of $3.1 billion, according to the National Council on Aging. That can leave many already vulnerable people financially destitute, with little time to recoup their losses.
Watch out for these common scams
Grandparent scam: An older person receives a phone call from someone claiming to be a family member — usually a grandchild — or from someone claiming to represent a family member, such as a lawyer or law enforcement official, and professes to be in immediate financial distress. They request funds be wired or to obtain a prepaid gift card and often beg the grandparent not to tell anyone. The older adult may have no way of ever recovering their money.
Romance scam: Targets people looking for romantic partners/companionship through dating websites or social media. After gaining your trust over weeks, months or longer, they tell a false story and ask for money, gifts or your bank account/credit card details. They do not keep their promises and always have an excuse for why they cannot travel to meet in person or why they always need more money. While this can happen to people of any age, older adults may be more vulnerable due to increased loneliness and lack of social engagement. In 2022, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam, with reported losses reaching $1.3 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Government impersonation scam: Scammers claim to be from the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration or Medicare. They may claim unpaid taxes, or that benefits will be cut or threaten arrest or deportation unless the person agrees to pay up immediately. Those 60 and older lost more than $724 million to government impersonation scams and tech support scams originating from call centers in 2022 — more than all the other age groups combined.
Tech support scam: Scammers act as technology support representatives and offer to fix non-existent computer problems. The scammer may either request remote access to the person’s computer or demand a fee for repair. This scam takes advantage of older people’s lack of knowledge about computers and cybersecurity, and can allow the scammer to gain access to personal information.
Robocalls/phone scam: One common robocall is the “Can you hear me?” call. When the older person says “yes,” the scammer records their voice and hangs up. The criminal then has a voice signature to authorize unwanted charges on items like stolen credit cards. Other calls may claim that a warranty is expiring on the person’s car or electronic device, and payment is needed to renew it. Often the number is spoofed to make it look like the call is coming from a legitimate company.
Phishing: This scam uses emails, texts and websites falsely representing themselves as a legitimate bank, credit card company or other financial institution. They’ll request personal information, including your full name, Social Security number or account information. The scammers manipulate internet users to disclose personal and financial data.
How AI impacts elder fraud
The Attorney General of New Hampshire is currently investigating AI-generated robocalls, purportedly from President Biden, encouraging registered Democrats not to vote in the state’s January primary. The calls actually came from two companies in Texas. It’s the latest tool con artists are employing when targeting their victims.
Scam attempts are definitely getting more sophisticated, said Dean Sittig, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. AI “offers con artists a new dimension in that now they can actually impersonate (via voice or even video) a trusted friend, relative or colleague,” he said.
Often, scam artists will reveal something about you to make it appear that they are familiar with you, Sittig said.
“They’re stealing your identity and getting some information about you,” he added. “Then they know who your kids are, where you work, or your Social Security number, and you think they’re legitimate because they know that stuff.”
The internet has made it easier for us to access information about other people, such as their address and phone number, names of relatives, what they paid for their homes, and more.
“People should realize that very little about their life is a secret anymore,” Sittig said. “We have traded our privacy and our secrecy for convenience.”
Avoiding elder scams
Seniors are an attractive target for scammers as they may have more money and time than younger people. They also may be less aware of the latest cons or how technologies can play a role in scam attempts.
Sittig offered several tips for seniors — and the rest of us:
Most popular companies to spoof
These are the most popular companies scam artists are using to try to trick people into divulging personal information through smishing, or scam attempts through text message, according to AccuKnox, a cloud security company:
- U.S. Postal Service
- Wells Fargo
- UPS
- Amazon
- Chase
- Paypal
- FedEx
- AT&T
The emotional toll of fraud
Fraud victims must not only deal with financial losses, but they also experience a host of emotions — anxiety, embarrassment, fear, shame, helplessness and more. Our colleague described feeling anxious and unsettled, and had trouble sleeping after a very sophisticated attempt to gain access to her credit card information — including threatening phone calls.
Victimization has been linked to increased hospitalizations, admittance to skilled nursing facilities, and lower 5-year all-cause mortality survival rates. There’s also a strong link between victimization and elevated blood pressure, especially in older men, according to a 2022 study co-authored by Duke Han, Ph.D., professor of psychology, family medicine, neurology, and gerontology at the University of Southern California.
“Any time an older adult becomes a victim of scam or fraud, we see a wide range of responses,” he said. Some older adults can just shrug it off, while others take it hard, and it has a profound impact. “We see impacts on sleep, and some depressive and anxious symptoms, there’s often a lack of trust or distrust that occurs, and if it happens within a marriage, it might even end in divorce.”
Part of the response is due to the extent of the fraud, scam and financial loss. Part of it is the unexpected nature of being scammed because there’s a presumption of trust among older adults that gets shaken. What may seem like a small experience of scam or fraud can really do a lot to shake someone’s sense of trust, well-being and safety in the world, particularly as an older adult, according to Han.
It’s not clear what, if any, long-term health effects may be linked to these schemes, and there’s little research to date on this topic, according to Han. Like other traumatic events, elder scams may be associated with negative health health outcomes.
Meanwhile, journalists should continue reporting on the latest scams to help educate the public, Sittig said.
“You’re providing a valuable resource,” he said. “The more you can tell people about different types of scams, the better off they are and will be more likely to recognize [them and their variations].”
Resources
- How to spot and report on deepfakes – an AHCJ tip sheet from December 2023.
- When hospital ransomware attacks target patients: A new trend to follow – an AHCJ blog post from January 2024.
- Secure our World – a fact sheet from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), a government agency that helps protect the country from cyberattacks and other threats, on how to protect yourself, your family and your businesses from online threats.
- Elder Fraud Report – from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2022).
- AARP Fraud Network Scam Map – documents reported scams in real time. Track by ZIP code or keyword, by law enforcement or AARP network reports.
- National Elder Fraud hotline: 833-372-8311 – from the Office of Victims of Crime, U.S. Department of Justice .
