Okay guys, picture this: Your parents have worked hard their whole lives and have a nice little nest egg set aside to enjoy their retirement years. Then one day, someone calls or emails them from the IRS or somewhere else super official-sounding, and your parents share private financial info with the mystery person on the other end of the line. And before you know it, a scammer has drained their bank account. It sounds like something that would never happen to your family, right? Well, sadly, things like this happen every single day to thousands of older Americans. Elder fraud is big business for cyber criminals. People over 60 lost $1.7 billion—or more than $18,000 per victim—to internet scams in 2021 alone.1 Yes, billion. That’s terrible, you guys! Here’s the thing, folks like your aging parents and grandparents are at a much higher risk for being scammed or defrauded out of their money because they might not be as tech saavy as young people.
But you can help protect your older loved ones from elder fraud and marketing ploys meant to steal their money. Now, talking to your family about their money isn’t always easy, but it really is an act of love when you do. So I’m going to walk you through the most common scams on the elderly so everybody’s on the same page.
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