There is a growing number of scams out there targeting older people. Fraudsters often target and prey on seniors because they may not have family members who live nearby and are usually more trusting. As a result, they are likely to befriend someone who calls them. Also, since seniors may have cognitive issues and may not be computer savvy, fraudsters take advantage of their knowledge gap and convince them to click on suspicious links and divulge sensitive personal data. Sadly, an older adult is less likely to notice when fraudulent activity has begun in their bank accounts, and even after discovering it, they are less likely to report it. This often makes it challenging to prosecute financial scams and gives the perpetrators sufficient time to cover their tracks.
One of the prevalent scams targeting older adults is the grandparent scam, where scammers call their targets, claiming to be one of their grandchildren in distress, urgently in need of financial assistance for a medical emergency or bail from police custody. They emotionally manipulate their victims and plead with them not to let any other family member know about the request, making the victim feel pressured to wire them money quickly. An IRS scam is another common scam that targets seniors in which fraudsters impersonate government officials and contact their victims, claiming that those unsuspecting seniors owe the government taxes. Since the callers are often intimidating and use authoritative tones to threaten their targets with arrest or other consequences, their victims comply out of fear.
Another type of scam that disproportionately affects the elderly is phishing scams, in which fraudulent persons text or email seniors with messages that appear to be from actual institutions such as banks, hospitals, or investment companies. Such messages may contain requests for personal banking information or links that, if clicked on, would allow the fraudster to gain remote access to the elderly person’s computer and bank accounts.
Scammers may also contact their targets, promising significant rewards or claiming that the elderly person has won a lottery or prize. They may inform their targets that they must provide their banking details quickly to have the prize money deposited to them directly. Or the fraudster may pose as a representative of a charity organization appealing for donations to support a noble cause. In reality, there would be no prize money or charity organization in need of funding. All the caller wants is to obtain sensitive personal information or a quick money transfer. Since the payment methods that scammers demand money through are often untraceable, such as wire transfers, prepaid gift cards, or debit cards, the money their victims send cannot be traced.
It can be distressing to learn that your parent or grandparent has been defrauded, and you may be wondering if it is possible to recover the money lost or how to prevent further loss from happening. This article will provide you with immediate steps to take when an elderly loved one has fallen victim to a scam to help minimize the damage, protect their other assets, and even recover from the loss.
Call Their Financial Institutions Immediately
The first thing to do after identifying fraudulent activity in your parent’s account is to contact their financial institutions to inform them about your discovery. Credit card companies and banks often have emergency protocols for dealing with scams, such as locking the accounts, halting the ongoing transactions, or reversing the transactions if the incident is reported early enough.
Your bank may even advise you to close an existing account and open a new one where your parent’s money can be moved to. Besides preventing further loss of funds to scammers, opening a new account to move money allows your parents to access their funds and pay bills while the fraud is being investigated.
Seek Legal Advice
Peak to a lawyer who specializes in helping fraud victims after discovering the activity on your parent’s account. According to Silver Miller Law, an elder financial fraud law firm, “Banks and other financial institutions have mechanisms in place to closely scrutinize circumstances that amount to elder financial abuse, though those mechanisms often break down or are outright ignored. Among the hallmarks of such scams committed upon senior citizens that banks should, but many times do not, prevent are large or out-of-character wire transfer requests from senior customers, several wire transfers in quick succession from an elderly account holder, requests to transfer the entirety of a senior’s bank account funds, and transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges, especially from customers who have never engaged in such transactions.”
So, if your elderly loved one has been defrauded, it is important to speak to a lawyer quickly to ensure that their financial institutions, credit unions, or cryptocurrency exchangers are held responsible for their negligence.
File a Police Report and Place a Fraud Alert on Their Credit Report
Ensure your loved one files a police report about the scam incident. Such a report helps financial institutions to proceed with investigations into the case and possibly compensation claims. It may also be valuable in building a case against the perpetrator if the scammer is targeting other people in your area.
To prevent the scammer from opening new accounts and lines of credit in your name, place a fraud alert on your parent’scredit reports with major credit bureaus, such as TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. This helps to warn potential creditors that anyone applying for credit in your parent’s name could be a scammer. Therefore, those companies must go the extra mile to verify IDs before opening a new line of credit.
Change Their Security Information
The scammer may have gained access to your loved one’s login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, during the scam. As a result, your loved one’s existing passwords are no longer secure and may be used at a later time for unauthorized access to their different accounts. To protect their accounts from further compromise, ensure that your elderly loved one changes the passwords for all their email and social media accounts. They should also change the login information and passwords for their online banking accounts as well as the PINS of their credit and debit cards.
Ensure that the new passwords chosen are strong and unique for each account. They should also contain a combination of symbols, numbers, and lowercase and uppercase letters. If they don’t already have it activated, have them turn ontwo-factor authentication for all their financial accounts. This helps to add an extra layer of security for accounts because it requires an additional form of verification, such as a text message, email, or phone call, before a user can access an account.