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Seniors beware: Scammers often target the elderly

New York Teacher
Seniors beware
Erica berger

Elder fraud expert Anna Diao discusses romance scams, which cost victims $1.3 billion last year, at the May 1 RTC meeting.

Senior citizens need to be wary of emails, phone calls and text messages designed to get them to hand over money or share personal information, an elder fraud expert told UFT retirees at the Retired Teachers Chapter membership meeting in May.

Fraud is a booming business, said Anna Diao, the chief of the Elder Fraud Unit in the Queens District Attorney’s Office. In 2022, scam victims nationwide lost $8.8 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission. People aged 60 and older, who tend to lose twice as much as younger victims, were scammed out of $1.6 billion. In New York State alone last year, there were more than 108,000 reports of fraud resulting in $408 million lost, Diao said.

“Victims rarely recover money,” she said. “If they do, they are rarely made whole. And elderly victims typically are underreported — they may not know who to talk to or they may feel embarrassed.”

RTC Chapter Leader Tom Murphy said it behooves retirees to stay up to date on the most common scams and how to avoid them since fraud and identity-theft tactics change frequently.

Con artists come in many forms, and the risk of identity theft underlies them all, Diao said. They pose as people with investment opportunities, people offering tech support, and people who claim you have won the lottery or inherited money, for example. Some scammers call unsuspecting older adults and pretend to be from the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration or Medicare. In the popular grandparent jail bail scam, callers pose as grandchildren in trouble who need money immediately.

Romance scammers post fake profiles online and “tell lies to steal your hearts and to steal your money,” Diao said. With scams involving cryptocurrency — digital money that allows people to make direct payments online — fraudsters promise great returns and payouts. They pressure victims to act quickly — without doing any research.

An estimated 45% of all email is spam, Diao said. Phishing emails or texts are designed to trick people into clicking on a link or opening an attachment, which can introduce malware to a computer and expose personal information. These messages may appear to come from a well-known entity, such as a bank, or may even be “spoofing” emails that look like they are from a friend or family member but are not.

“As you see, these scams are sophisticated,” Diao said. “Any of us can fall victim to them, but the more we talk about it, the more we can learn from each other and the more we can fight fraud.”

Tips to avoid fraud include:

  • Don’t click on email attachments or links unless you’re sure who sent them.
  • Never send money in the mail, by wire or in the form of gift cards or cryptocurrency to someone you have not met.
  • Don’t trust that an official-looking email from a government agency is real.
  • Never give a stranger access to your bank account information.
  • Never sign a document unless you have reviewed it or had someone you know explain it.
  • Do not send pictures of yourself or family members to strangers.
  • Be cautious about sharing information on social media.
  • Don’t call phone numbers you haven’t verified.
  • Get free yearly credit reports from Transunion, Equifax and Experion.
  • If you suspect you are the victim of identity theft, freeze your credit.
Related Topics: Retired Teachers