Older Adults Continue to Be Frequent Targets of Scammers

The array of tools hackers use to try to steal information is growing, especially in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), with older adults frequently being targeted.

“There’s an ongoing, multi-decade campaign directly targeting the elderly,” Roger A. Grimes, an author, advisor, and chief information security officer at cybersecurity awareness firm KnowBe4, told The Goshen News. There are a number of reasons for this, he said, including the possibility that they may have more disposable income and may be less familiar with cybercrime than younger adults.

AI has exacerbated the problem because it can automate the process of hacking, he said: “AI allows these scams to be more popular, more pervasive, and more successful in stealing more money,” said Grimes, whose books include “Hacking the Hacker.” “Almost all hacking tools today are AI-enabled, and the hacker just buys or rents [the technology]” for the scam.

For example, AI-enabled deepfakes are making romance scams even more popular and they frequently target older adults, he said. In this scam, the hacker takes on a fake identity such as a celebrity — Yanni and Brad Pitt are popular ones — to build a victim’s trust and gain access to personal information and eventually the victim’s savings, he said.

That aligns with a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study last year that found a growing wave of scams aimed at retirees’ life savings. Scammers often pretend to be from government agencies and businesses, using fake security alerts to target the vigilance of older adults to protect their savings, the FTC said in the study.

Fraud losses from people over 60 years old quadrupled from $600 million in 2020 to $2.4 billion in 2024, with a steep rise in losses of more than $100,000 often from investment and romance scams as well as impersonations, the study found. The report noted that younger people are also losing money to scammers but that much higher losses — in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars — are more likely to be reported to authorities by older adults.

While many scams occur online, the FTC listed three common tricks that typically begin with a phone call. Although, even when they do not start with a call, the goal is to get the victim on the phone, where it is easier to instill fear and a sense of urgency, “so it’s harder for you to think clearly and check things out,” it said.

The first scam involves an imposter pretending to be from a bank or from Amazon, saying that someone is wrongfully using that person’s bank account. The imposter either says the call is due to suspicious activity in the bank account or that there is an unauthorized purchase in the Amazon account.

Another common scam is when someone impersonates a government officer, calling with a warning that the victim’s social security number is linked to a crime, such as drug smuggling, money laundering, or even child pornography.

The third one starts with a fake on-screen computer security alert warning that the victim’s online account has been hacked. The alert, which looks similar to what Apple or Microsoft would send, includes a phone number to call.

Whatever the means, the hacker’s goal is the same — to get as much money as possible, the FTC said.

“These scammers say the only way out of the [fake] crisis is to follow their instructions — which will include sending money to the scammers,” the FTC said. “They may say this will keep your money safe, secure your identity, clear your name, or help catch the criminals.”

The Better Business Bureau (BBB), meanwhile, has another warning for all adults as tax season approaches. Tax scams “appear each tax season with a slightly different spin, but the central theme is scammers posing as the Internal Revenue Service trying to trick people into paying up or sharing personal information,” BBB said.

To avoid falling prey to scams, the FTC said to avoid moving money in the hope of protecting it. “Never transfer or send money to anyone, no matter who they say they are, in response to an unexpected call or message — even if they say it’s to ‘protect’ it,” the agency said. 

Always hang up the phone and call the company or agency directly using the number or website information that is known to be real, the FTC said. Block all unwanted calls to stop many of the scammers from reaching you, the agency added.

Grimes said that if he had only 20 seconds to teach the world how not to be scammed, he would give two pieces of advice. The first is to beware of unexpected messages.

“No matter how it’s communicated to you — whether by email, SMS, social media, somebody in person — that is a high-risk message,” he said. “If you get that, research it but don’t use any of the information in the message to do that.”

His second caution is to beware of any messages asking for something to be done that the receiver has never done before. “Even with a deep fake,” he said, “the scammer is still going to have to scam you and the scam is going to have these two attributes.”

For more information on spotting scams and ways to avoid them, both the FTC’s Consumer Protection Division — consumer.gov — and the BBB — bbb.org — offer guidance.