(Credit: Westend61 / Getty Images)
Scams involving alleged romance, lottery or prize sweepstakes, business imposters and tech support are among the top types of ways that older adults’ retirement savings are stolen, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The federal agency hosted a webinar Tuesday sharing free resources and tips to help older adults and their caregivers recognize and avoid cyber scams.
Younger people report losing money to fraud (44% of adults aged 20 to 29) compared with older adults (20% of those aged 70 to 79), but older adults have higher losses ($1,300 each, on average) compared with their younger counterparts ($324), according to the Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2020.
CFPB Office for Older Americans Senior Policy Analyst Lisa Schifferle, a panelist, said that one positive point is that older adults mostly use credit cards to pay for things, which offer greater levels of protection than some other forms of payment. But older adults still lost $44 million in 2020 when they paid scammers with credit cards. And although only 4.3% of older adults paid scammers through wire transfers, it was the top reported way to lose money, at $112 million lost.
The CFPB offers a guide designed specifically for professionals at assisted living communities and nursing homes to help prevent the elder financial exploitation of residents.
The top cyber scams affecting older adults, Schifferle said, are tech…
