Suspect a scam or fraud? TARCOG issues tips to caution senior citizens

By Gregg Parker | Living 50 Plus

A local agency is helping to protect the well-being of senior citizens in the North Alabama region by advising them to avoid dangerous scams and consumer fraud.

To hopefully prevent costly fraud, Top of Alabama Regional Council of Governments or TARCOG conducted the Senior Medicare Patrol Fraud & Scam Summit in Huntsville in August 2024.

TARCOG is assisting the community to learn about the most common scams. Reports of elder fraud to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center rose by 14 percent in 2023. The 2024 summit, free to the public, explained strategies to outsmart fraudsters, according to Sheila Dessau-Ivey, who serves as TARCOG’s Director of Aging Programs Director.

A component of the summit, the Senior Medicare Patrol or SMP at TARCOG empowers and assists Medicare beneficiaries, their families and caregivers to prevent, detect and report healthcare fraud, errors and abuse, Dessau-Ivey said.

In addition, the Fraud & Scam Summit provided an overview of scams and fraud in Alabama. Topics included “Cybersecurity,” “Financial Scams,” “Consumer Fraud” and “Legal Implications.”

Exhibitors represented state programs, community partners, nonprofit and community organizations and area businesses in the TARCOG region. These presenters shared educational resources to attendees, Dessau-Ivey said.

“Combatting the financial exploitation of those over 60 years of age continues to be a priority of the FBI,” Michael D. Nordwall said. As FBI Assistant Director, Nordwall leads the Bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division. “Along with our partners, we continually work to aid victims and to identify and investigate the individuals and criminal organizations that perpetrate these schemes and target the elderly.”

The FBI has issued tips for older individuals who are scam victims:

• Contact the originating bank or financial institution immediately to request a recall or reversal and a Hold Harmless Letter or Letter of Indemnity.

• File a detailed complaint with www.ic3.gov (an FBI group). The complaint must contain all required data, including banking information.

• Never change any payment without verifying with action with the intended recipient. Also, verify email addresses are accurate when checking email on a cell phone or other mobile device.

Elder fraud is most likely a more insidious threat than the report shows. Many crimes go unreported. Only about half of fraud complaints submitted to the center in 2023 included victims’ ages, according to the FBI’s annual Elder Fraud Report, April 2024.

The FBI’s report states key areas of concern, especially for senior citizens:

• Call centers – Can financial ruin . . . literally. These scams overwhelmingly target older adults with devastating effects. Consumers who are 60 or older lost more to these scams than all other age groups – combined.

Older individuals should use extra discretion about remortgaging, a home in foreclosure, empty retirement accounts and loans from relatives and friends to cover losses. Tragically, some incidents have led to suicide because of shame or loss of sustainable income. (ic3.gov/Media)

• Elder fraud is an expensive crime. — Scams targeting individuals who are 60 years old and older caused more than $3.4 billion in losses in 2023, an increase of approximately 11 percent from the previous year. The average victim of elder fraud lost $33,915.

• Older Americans feel the brunt. – Senior citizens disproportionately experience the impact of scams and fraud. More than 101,000 victims who are 60 years old and older reported this category to the FBI in 2023. Conversely, victims younger than 20 years old represent the least-impacted demographic.

• Tech support tops the list. – Tech support scams were the most widely reported type of elder fraud in 2023. Approximately 18,000 victims who are at least 60 years old reported scams to the FBI Center. Personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, non-payment, non-delivery scams and investment scams rounded out the top five most common frauds.

• Most costly fraud — Investment scams accounted for the costliest type of elder fraud in 2023. These schemes cost victims more than $1.2 billion in losses that year.

Senior citizens should beware of scams involving tech support, business email compromises, confidence schemes, romance plots, government impersonation and personal data breaches. These situations cost victims.

• Confidence and Romance scams – Scammers design scenarios ‘to pull on a person’s heartstrings.’ In 2023, the FBI received reports from 6,740 individuals older than 60 years who lost approximately $357 million.

Romance scams occur when a criminal adopts a fake online identity to gain an individual’s affection and then steals from the individual. The criminals will seem genuine, caring and believable but have malicious intent. (ic3.gov/Media/PDF)

• ‘Phantom Hacker’ – A newer trend. Couriers retrieve cash and precious metals from individuals in scams involving call centers.

• Cryptocurrency — Scammers are coming for people’s cryptocurrency. More than 12,000 victims at least 60 years old indicated that cryptocurrency was “a medium or tool used to facilitate” the scam, according to FBI records.

Scammers convince people to withdraw and deposit large sums of cash into cryptocurrency ATMs or kiosks, which the scammer provides. After cash is deposited and converted into cryptocurrency, the scammer transfers it to other cryptocurrency accounts.

TARCOG’s coverage includes DeKalb, Jackson, Limestone, Madison and Marshall counties in North Alabama. The TARCOG staff assists individuals 60 years old minimum. The agency provides civic planning, industry development, job creation and project funding to local governments.

For more information on national trends, visit fbi.gov/news/stories. For regional reports, call 256-830-0818, or visit tarcog.us.