Seniors More Vulnerable to Losing Money Through Online Scams: Attorney General

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) with Harold Pyon, deputy commissioner of Virginia's Department of Labor and Industry, at an Asian American town hall in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 6, 2023. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

The Federal Trade Commission found that elderly people are the most vulnerable to online scams, with the age bracket of 60 to 69 being taken advantage of more than any other age group.

“Seniors are [a] particularly vulnerable area of the population to scammers,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told The Epoch Times.

Scammers target people using three main tactics: They create uncertainty, tug at a person’s emotions, and use urgency. Elderly people are typically more susceptible to all of these tactics.

Scams include tax and Medicare fraud, identity theft, funeral scams, fake virus scanners, investment and telemarketing schemes, overdue utilities, online unprocessed purchases, charity scams, and family-in-need scenarios.

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2021 report (pdf), elderly Americans lose the most money to scams each year. Financial loss for the elderly rose 74 percent from 2021 to 2022, with people over 60 losing close to $2 billion via the internet that year.

The AG’s office works with state and local law enforcement agencies to protect consumers, especially the elderly, from online scams. Scammers use the three tactics to manipulate the elderly consumer, said Miyares.

“It can be something [like] pretending they are a law enforcement officer and their ... grandchild has been picked up on some charge and they are requesting their information to wire the money to have them make bail,” Miyares said.

“They’re very, very sophisticated. You know, my general rule of thumb is [to] never click on a link anywhere where they’re asking you for personal information, or particularly your financial information,” Miyares warns.

The Better Business Bureau released its online scam tracker 2022 report, which revealed that online shopping scams remained the No. 1 riskiest scam type in 2022, which made up 31.9 percent of all scams reported to BBB Scam Tracker in 2022, with 74.0 percent reporting a financial loss.

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COVID lockdowns created “a perfect storm for those bad actors to be able to get people to depart some of their hard-earned cash,” Miyares told The Epoch Times.

In addition to online scams, the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Section handled over 15,000 calls in 2022 to help resolve disputes over issues like automotive sales, home improvement, service and repair, credit, loans and debt collection, and warranties and rebates.

“Our No. 1 consumer complaint is always automotive sales. It’s increasing particularly because of the chip shortage; you have less and less new cars being sold and more and more used cars being sold,” Miyares said.

“We reach out to the retailer saying listen, there’s been this complaint, and that’s where we have this dispute resolution unit, which resolves several thousand matters [a year],” Miyares said.

According to the AG’s office, in 2022 the Dispute Resolution Unit and the section’s investigators resolved or closed 3,823 consumer complaints with consumers recovering $421,954.

Miyares encourages residents to contact his office, or their state’s AG office, to help prevent or resolve consumer scams.