this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
156 points (100.0% liked)

News

23353 readers
3102 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Reports of older adults losing over $100,000 to scams have tripled since 2020, per the FTC, with 4,600 cases in 2023 compared to 1,300 in 2020.

Older Americans lost $1.9 billion to fraud last year, with the actual losses likely closer to $62 billion due to underreporting.

Common scams include romance, investment (notably fake cryptocurrency), and imposter scams. The psychological and financial toll is severe, especially for retirees.

Experts urge vigilance against red flags like urgent demands, social isolation tactics, and unusual payment requests like gift cards or cryptocurrency.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm torn. Should I feel bad for these people or should I think that they are old enough to know better and are responsible for their own actions?

[–] ryathal 8 points 1 day ago

You should be mad that the government has done fuck all to stop or hold telecommunications companies responsible for a call from outside the country appearing as the FBI to scam old people.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'd bet that a good number of older people who fall for these scams are people whose interpersonal relationships have become thinner over the years, making the scams more attractive as personal contact.

When they were younger, and had people around them more often, these kind of scams might also have come up, and they might have fallen for the scams then, too, except for being able to talk to people more readily and have someone say that it doesn't sound right.

So it's a combination of "I've always been open to falling for scams" and "I have a weaker community support system now."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

There is also the loss of mental acuity with age. I've seen a lot of people mentally regress as they hit their 60's.

You also have people who may not be aware of how some systems work because they've never had to deal with them while the rest of the world has. I've seen people this year struggle using my car because they didn't know you have to press the brake when you push the start button, as their cars still use keys.