The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently released its 2022 Elder Fraud Report, which shows the total financial losses in elder fraud cases rose sharply in 2022.
Nationwide, the total losses reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as IC3, increased by 84% in 2022 from 2021. Those losses were valued at about $3.1 billion with an average of $35,101 per victim.
Tech and customer support schemes continued to be the most common type of fraud reported, with 17,800 complaints filed by victims over 60 years old. Monetary losses due to investment fraud reported by victims over 60 increased by over 300%, primarily due to the rise of crypto-investment scams.
Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Seres with the FBI Atlanta office said Georgia was ranked 14 in the country when looking at the number of victims over 60 in 2022. Meanwhile, the state ranked 9 in the country for overall financial losses, at $78,736,227 in 2022.
Seres said the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in social media usage could have played a role in the increase in fraud schemes in the United States over the past several years.
"COVID comes in 2020, there's already a growing use of social media, online dating apps, which really are an access point for criminals to get directly to individuals that they couldn't get to before," Seres said. "So, when people get shoved into their home, into their apartments, and they're looking for relationships and contacts, they just created the opportunity for a lot of criminals to have direct access to potential new victims."
The fraudsters use a variety of methods, according to Seres, including a method that makes the victim believe they are experiencing an emergency situation.
"Like you feel compelled that you have to take action immediately to resolve something that's happening," Seres said. "These come in a couple of different ways. A common one we see, which is one of the highest reported schemes, is tech support fraud. You're on your computer, and you get a pop-up that says you have a virus, click on this and we'll help you resolve the issue. That's typically some kind of malware or some kind of a virus that a fraudster has put on your computer with the goal of you clicking on it so they can steal your information."
Seres said some fraudsters also pretend to be with a tech support company and claim they need the victim to send money to correct the alleged issue with the computer or device.
"Similarly, we see, particularly in Georgia, quite a bit of government impersonation scams," Seres said. "You may get a phone call or an email or a text from someone purporting to be from the Social Security Administration or the DEA, or even the FBI, saying, 'Hey, you were involved in a crime,' or, 'you missed your jury duty,' which makes you compelled to take a quick action."
Seres said the red flag in this scenario is when the scammer asks the victim to provide payment via gift card, cryptocurrency or mail cash.
Additionally, Seres said investment fraud is starting to become a huge issue when it comes to the population of people older than 60 years old.
"You may meet someone online, you've never met them before, they build up a rapport with you ... and then they say, 'Hey, how about investing in cryptocurrency?'" Seres said. "[These] typically involve sending cryptocurrency to make your investment, but they're just online fraud schemes."
If you believe you have fallen victim to fraud, report the incident to IC3.gov, contact your financial institution, and consider putting a freeze on your credit.
