Elderly Care Spotlight: How Elderly People Can Avoid Being Scammed...

The elderly are often the biggest targets for fraudulent scams. This is just another form of elder abuse, and older people with cognitive decline usually fall right into this trap. These scams can range from direct telephone calls, emails, and mail, to indirect methods like radio and television. In this technology age, the use of AI is making fraudulent scams much harder to identify. Elderly people are usually the ones with their own home, a healthy savings account, and better credit than younger people, and this is why they are highly targeted. They are usually being watched by their families for decline, and therefore, they don't like to report fraudulent activity because they don't want to come off as weak or unable to care for themselves. Senior citizens make up for $3 billion in fraudulent money losses per year.

The greatest way to fight fraudulent scams is by educating the elderly on how to identify the areas that they can be attacked. We need to help them find ways to protect themselves from being targeted. If there is a robocall or spam call, it is important that they hang up and block the number right away. There is a national "Do Not Call Registry" that they can use to report the numbers of these callers. There are government impersonators that use the IRS, Medicare, and the Social Security Administration to hide behind. There are also fake profiles on dating apps, with tech support scammers that demand money for problems that do not exist, and in fake lotteries, sweepstakes, and other deepfakes that are getting better and better at hiding who they really are. The U.S. Department of Justice has a long list of potential threats to the elderly population when it comes to scammers. Instead of celebrating something fake that is considered "real", it is best to do the research to find out whether or not it is really real. It is important that the elderly person never reacts quickly and never clicks on links provided online, but instead takes some time to do the needed research and think about what the best thing to do might be. If someone is asking for money, they should be suspicious. On top of asking for something, if the scammers start to get hostile or use threatening behavior, then they are definitely trying to get away with fraud. Caller ID can help to identify some scammers, but there is technology these days that help them hide behind legitimate company names. The biggest advice is to be extra cautious of any con artists disguised as a real business. It is also very important to never reveal personal information to anyone over the phone, email, or snail mail. In fact, there can be extra security added to personal accounts, monitoring devices that can be installed to watch over money accounts, and places to report these experiences to the state and to the federal protection agencies. Instead of giving information out, the information from the potential scammer can be filtered through the Better Business Bureau, the Charity Navigator, and the website called CharityWatch to make sure they are legitimate. Elderly people need to be extra cautious by taking these steps to ensure they are protected. With awareness and protective measures taken, the elderly community can hopefully evade most of the scammers out there looking for their next prey.