13 Common Scams That Target Seniors

Con artists work overtime to scam seniors out of their money and private information, including passwords, credit cards, and Social Security numbers. These scummy scammers target older generations because of their perceived lack of technological savvy and potential isolation from loved ones who can protect them from such exploitation.

We all receive emails, texts, and phone calls almost daily from people who aren’t who they say they are. While blocking these intrusive callers and emails helps, these cybercriminals desperate to make an easy buck find ways to circumvent spam filters or impersonate companies that you actually trust.

There are many different methods that scammers use to target their favorite prey: senior citizens. Here are 13 common scam tactics that sadly work more often than they should.

Identity Theft

Identity theft occurs whenever a criminal gets access to private information such as a Social Security number, banking information, account numbers, and passwords. Millions of people, many of them seniors, fall victim to identity theft every year.

According to a study at Cornell University, brain changes in older adults make it more difficult for seniors to see through a criminal’s intentions or comprehend the potential danger. This enables identity thieves to pose as someone from a company that the senior trusts and obtain information an actual representative from the real company would never ask for.

Grandparent Scams

This scam sounds like the plot of a movie or an urban legend, but it happens more often than one might think.

The grandparent scam involves a senior getting a call from someone pretending to be their grandchild or some other relative in a pickle. The caller will usually say they have been in an accident or are in jail and need money right away.

To avoid getting duped by a grandparent scam, try to contact the relative supposedly in trouble or someone close to them and see if the situation is legit. Even if the person calling you sounds in distress or happens to know your grandchild’s name, this doesn’t mean the call is genuine. Make some calls to relatives before wiring money to some random caller.

Health Insurance Scams

Scammers know that seniors have to deal with health insurance and Medicare more often than younger generations, which opens a door to take advantage of an elderly person dealing with health issues.

According to AARP, one frequently reported scam is when someone pretending to be a Medicare representative calls a senior and offers them a new plastic card with a chip instead of a flimsy paper card. All the senior has to do is give the caller their Medicare number (shouldn’t the alleged Medicare employee have it already?) and pay a small fee.

This sounds great to a lot of older Americans, but the truth is that Medicare would never call someone to offer them a new card, plastic or otherwise. The caller just wants to steal your Medicare number.

IRS Scams

A common IRS scam targeting seniors begins when someone posing as an IRS employee uses a fake name and badge number to identify themselves. The caller tells the victim that they owe the IRS money and that the IRS needs to be paid immediately in the form of a wired money transfer or a gift card. The victims are told that if they don’t pay immediately, they will risk losing their driver’s license, getting deported, or getting arrested.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the masterminds of scams like this use money mules to do their dirty work from within the United States who then transfer the funds offshore.

A huge red flag with this scam is that no one from the IRS would ever call a citizen and demand immediate payment in the form of a gift card.

Sweepstakes and Lottery Scams

As someone who used to work for a company known for showing up at people’s doors to surprise sweepstakes winners with balloons and a giant check, I know that these companies holding the sweepstakes do not contact winners prior and ask them to give money for “taxes and fees” before they can collect their winnings. That’s just not how it works.

According to the DOJ, a common lottery scheme involves a scammer contacting a victim by phone, email, or regular mail and telling them that they won the lottery but must pay taxes and other fees — usually to some party in Jamaica — to collect their big prize. The scammer acts like they are doing the victim a favor by having them pay upfront and avoid future hassles. If the victim refuses to pay or hesitates, the previously friendly “lottery employee” will suddenly threaten to get the IRS or police involved.

Charity Scams

One popular and despicable way to extort money from seniors is for someone to call or email pretending to represent a charitable organization. The scammer takes advantage of a senior citizen’s goodwill and desire to help by posing as a charity.

If someone calls you out of the blue and says they represent an organization that you might actually like to donate money to, end the call by telling them that you will donate directly on their website. If the call is fake, the scammer will likely discourage you from doing such a thing, even though it makes more sense. Once you cut the scammer off, seek out the actual charity that you are interested in by visiting their official website or calling their official phone number.

If you don’t do this and take the caller at their word, chances are you will be lining their pockets and not giving to an actual philanthropic cause.

Tech-Support Scams

Tech-support scams are insidious and deceive a lot of seniors. What happens is that someone will click on a link in an email or on a webpage and suddenly receive a flashing alert from “Microsoft” or “McAfee” telling them that their computer is infected with a virus and their personal information is at risk. All they have to do to remedy the situation is call the number on their screen and purchase security software that will fix everything right away.

Chances are that your computer does not have a virus and, if it does, the link you just clicked on that caused the pop-up warning is the culprit. Instead of reaching for your wallet and calling the number helpfully provided by the scammer, restart your computer and run the virus-removal program already installed on your computer. The scammer responsible for the threatening pop-up message on your computer screen will only help relieve your bank account of excess cash.

Phishing Scams

One of the most common tactics to part seniors with their money is phishing. With these scams, the victim will receive an email that, at first glance, looks like it is from a legitimate company. It might have the graphic logo of a company that you actually do business with and look like an actual invoice or demand for payment.

Even if the email looks like it originated from a company that you use like a utility or credit card company or Amazon, look more closely. Are there misspellings? Do you see weird spaces and punctuation, especially in the subject line? Does the first line read “dear customer” or “dear valued user” instead of using your full name? Is the “from” email from Gmail or Yahoo or some other entity other than the purported company sending the email? All of these are signs that the email is a scam and should be blocked immediately.

If you aren’t sure if an email that looks as if it were sent from a company that you use actually came from said company, simply log into your account or call the company directly and check. Don’t click any links in the phishing email or reply to the sender — you’re just helping them steal the information that they seek.

Funeral Scams

There are two types of common funeral scams that take advantage of a grieving elder. The first type involves a scammer who combs obituaries and contacts the spouse or parent of the deceased, telling them that their dearly departed loved one left a sizable debt that must be rectified immediately. The second type involves a disreputable funeral home employee who, say, convinces a grieving widow to pay extra money for a high-end casket to cremate her husband.

It’s easy to lose faith in humanity knowing that scammers prey on elderly victims when they are most vulnerable and grieving, but the scammers have learned that their attacks are more successful when the victim’s guard is down.

Home-Repair Scams

Elderly homeowners are targets for disreputable handymen or straight-up scam artists who offer to do a repair, remodel, or home improvement and ask for the full amount of the service up front. The scammer either takes the money and runs or does a lousy job because they have already been paid in full.

If you need something repaired in your home, do some research or talk to someone you trust for recommendations. A person who shows up out of nowhere at your door and offers to do a water heater or AC maintenance on the fly is probably a scam artist. Also, never pay more than half of a contracted fee up front. If the handyman demands payment in full before he starts to work, seek out another handyman.

Investment Scams

Investment scams offer low risk and high rewards. Although few people of any age understand exactly how Bitcoin works, seniors are especially ignorant about this digital currency that few financial advisors would recommend for someone in their golden years.

According to the National Council on Aging, cryptocurrency investment fraud losses increased from $907 million in 2021 to $2.57 billion in 2022. That’s an increase of 183%, and it’s only getting worse as senior citizens turn their hard-earned real money into a digital currency that exists primarily as computer code.

Telemarketing and Phone Scams

If you thought telemarketing scams were something that only happened in the 1980s and 1990s, think again. Like decades ago, scammers still call seniors and pretend to sell goods and services in order to get credit card payments.

Today, however, robocalls have taken the scam to the next level. If you receive a phone call from a number that you don’t know and the voice on the other line says, “Can you hear me?” simply hang up. The robocall is trying to record you saying “yes” so that the scammer has a recording of you to authorize a future purchase on a credit card.

Reverse Mortgage Scams

Of all the scams that target seniors, a reverse mortgage scam is one of the most damaging because it could result in duping an elderly person out of their home. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a reverse mortgage is “a mortgage that allows an elderly person to convert home equity into available funds through a line of credit, cash advance, or periodic disbursements to be repaid with interest usually when the borrower dies, moves, or sells the home.”

With reverse mortgage scams, a criminal will offer money or a free property in exchange for the title to your home. Once you hand over the title to your home to a stranger who probably sought you out and not the other way around, you’ve probably lost all legal rights to it.