How do I Scam Thee, Let me Count The Ways...
Now some experts say do not answer an unknown caller. In 3 seconds, the scammer has collected information about you.. your voice, "Hello" can be copied and used to scam you. And if you talk a bit more, you're giving them more ammunition without knowing.. they listen and record you snd your surrounding noises...whatever bit of info, is enough for somebody to get paid in exchange for 3 seconds. The news today said someone was arrested for collecting illegal signatures to "help get a bill on the voting ballot for people to vote on it. This man had stolen ID's and paid some homeless people to forge a signature. The more signatures he gets, the more money he makes. According to the news, he made $41,000.00 ! When I see these signature collectors, I wonder if this is really real? Or, will they be using your signature and ID for illegal purposes.. (?) I don't know...
I saw your comment about the woman who was scammed out of the $200 million. I'm just a little bit pleased when someone with that much gets taken for it. Instead of doing some good for people in need with that money, she's so greedy it gets invested to make more.
And when a telephone scam succeeds, the loss tends to be large. Older adults' median reported loss from phone-initiated fraud was about $2,210, versus about $650 for social-media-initiated fraud.
The scammers continually change the story so teach your LO this rule:
If someone unexpectedly contacts you and creates urgency involving your MONEY, ACCOUNT, COMPUTER or FAMILY — especially if they tell you to transfer money, buy gift cards, use cryptocurrency/Bitcoin, withdraw cash, give them remote access to your computer, or *keep the situation secret* — stop communicating with them immediately and independently verify it or ask a trusted family member to help you verify it.
I know it's a battle when the LOs are cognitively impaired but in most cases, it's all one can do.
(Info aggregated by ChatGPT5.5)
There are two different ways to define "most prevalent": the scams seniors encounter most often and the scams taking the most money. Looking at both FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and FBI data, these are the ones at the top:
Imposter scams
(Especially bank, government and business impersonation.) These are enormously common. The caller/text/email may claim to be the bank's fraud department, Social Security, Medicare, IRS, Amazon, Microsoft, law enforcement, etc. In 2025, imposter scams were nearly one-third of all fraud reports across age groups, with $3.5 billion in reported losses. A particularly dangerous version tells the victim that their bank account has been compromised and instructs them to move their money somewhere "safe."
Investment and cryptocurrency scams.
These are currently the biggest money-loser for older adults. In 2024 alone, people 60+ reported about $744 million lost to investment scams in FTC data—more than any other category. Many now begin on social media and involve cryptocurrency or fake investment platforms.
Tech-support scams.
These disproportionately affect seniors. It might be the classic pop-up saying "Your computer has been infected—call Microsoft," or someone calling about a supposed computer, printer, antivirus, Amazon or bank problem. The FBI says call-center tech-support and government-impersonation operations overwhelmingly target older adults.
Romance/relationship scams.
These remain extremely costly. Older adults reported about $329 million in romance-scam losses to the FTC in 2024. Increasingly, scammers cultivate the relationship for weeks or months before introducing an emergency or—particularly dangerously—persuading the victim to make an "investment."
Grandchild/family-emergency scams.
Someone calls claiming to be a grandchild—or a police officer, lawyer or doctor calling on the grandchild's behalf—and says there's been an accident, arrest or other emergency. AI-generated voice cloning has made this considerably more convincing, which is one reason the Senate Aging Committee highlighted AI-enabled fraud in its latest report.
Sweepstakes/lottery/inheritance scams.
The victim has supposedly won money but first must pay taxes, fees, shipping or some other charge. Seniors reported about $145 million lost to these scams in 2024, and older adults are substantially more likely than younger people to lose money to them.
Online shopping, delivery and phishing scams.
Fake Amazon purchases, USPS/UPS delivery texts, account-security alerts and bogus invoices are extremely common. Online-shopping scams actually produced more loss reports from people 60+ in 2024 (26,411) than any of the other categories in the FTC's top-ten table, although the dollar loss per incident tends to be much smaller.
Medicare/health-insurance scams.
Seniors get calls offering "free" braces, genetic tests, medical equipment, new Medicare cards or supposedly better benefits. The objective may be obtaining the Medicare number and other identifying information, submitting fraudulent Medicare claims, or selling inappropriate insurance.
One change over the last couple of years really stands out: the stereotypical senior scam used to be a telephone call. That's no longer the whole picture. In 2024, older adults actually reported more total losses from scams beginning on social media than from any other contact method, and social-media fraud losses among older adults had increased almost ninefold since 2020. Text-message scam losses have increased more than eightfold.
One lady owned a paid for stand alone house in The Villages. She transferred so much money to scammers that she lost her house and had to move back to family in upstate NY.
We have a local lady. She had $200 million from a divorce settlement. She gave the money to a broker and said she wanted it conservatively invested.
The local broker ponzied her money to prop up a failing shopping center development. All of her money was lost. The broker also had her children take out mortgages on their paid for houses and ponzied their money also. She has a lawsuit against the brokerage. The broker committed suicide.
I guess it's getting worse.
I know someone that had this exact thing happen to them: voice phishing. The scammers got a "sample" of a young woman's voice. They then contacted this young woman's parents and used her AI generated voice to "speak" to her parents, then the scammers telling them she'd been kidnapped, not to involve any police or agents or they'd harm her and to deposit $25k of crypto (which is a dead giveaway, it's such a low amount to demand).
Her poor terrified parents did exactly this, not bothering to call their daughter's number themselves (because scammers can make the call appear to come from anyone's phone number) or her friends or checking her social media. This happened almost 10 years ago.