Scammers identify older people to scam them over the phone or online.
In this type of scam there are two groups of scammers, those who communicate with the victims and those who close the business.
These fraudulent actions are far from isolated cases. According to the FBI, the number of scam reports targeting seniors saw an alarming increase in 2023. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received about 14% more complaints from people over the age of 60 years compared to the previous year.
Additionally, scammers managed to collect a total of $3.4 billion from seniors over the same period, which is an 11% increase from the previous year.
These alarming figures concern the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has received more than 100,000 complaints related to scams, and more than 5,000 of these complaints involved losses of $100,000 or more. The average monetary loss for all incidents was nearly $34,000.
The authorities call for vigilance and public awareness of these fraudulent practices, recalling that the elderly are particularly vulnerable to this type of scam.
The modus operandi of those communicating with the victims has been meticulously designed to sow panic among them. Using sophisticated technology, calls pretend to come from the United States and seniors are falsely informed that a family member has been in a car accident or has been arrested and needs urgent financial help.
Once victims fall into the trap and believe their loved ones are in danger, other members of the network, called “Closers,” pose as defense lawyers, police officers or court personnel, convincing victims to provide large sums of money to help their relatives in difficulty.
