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    Protecting elders from scams

    Protecting elders from scams: Scams are run by professionals. Protection can be too.

    In 2025, Americans aged sixty and over reported losing $7.7 billion to internet crime, an average of $38,500 each. Scammers are professionals, and in a randomized trial, warning mailings to past victims cut repeat losses.

    Try it in the sliderTalk to Ryan

    Ryan K. Hertel · heyitskenton

    The problem

    What we're up against.

    • Huge losses, every year.

      People aged sixty and over filed 201,266 internet crime complaints with the FBI in 2025 and reported losing $7.7 billion.

    • Bigger losses, less time to recover.

      Their average loss was $38,500, against $20,699 for all ages, and 12,444 lost more than $100,000 each.

    • Far more than is reported.

      The FTC estimates fraud cost older adults between $10.1 billion and $81.5 billion in 2024, and about one in eighteen older adults is defrauded each year.

    • A lasting toll.

      Being defrauded is linked to anxiety, depression, shame and self-blame, not just lost money.

    • Run by professionals.

      Victims aren't foolish: the criminals behind these scams have professionalized their industry.

    What works

    Proven, and ready to grow.

    • A letter that helps.

      In a randomized trial with the US Postal Inspection Service, mailings to past fraud victims cut repeat victimization by five percentage points.

    • A warning call.

      When volunteers phoned past victims with a warning, they were less likely to accept a test scam later.

    • Short lessons.

      In a randomized trial, a few minutes of online education meaningfully reduced people's interest in fraudulent offers.

    • Speed gets money back.

      In 642 fast-reported cases involving older victims, the FBI helped freeze $32.9 million of the $65.4 million reported lost.

    • Banks can step in.

      Federal bank regulators point to practices that can be effective, such as holding suspicious transactions, and banks flagged 155,415 suspicious reports of elder exploitation, worth about $27 billion, in a single year.

    What a family could fund

    Where the money goes furthest.

    • A hotline with a waiting line.

      The Justice Department's elder fraud hotline received 62,913 calls in a year, and 23,515 reached its staff, and it's open only on weekdays.

    • Helplines that scale.

      AARP's fraud helpline took over 100,000 calls in 2023, with 25 staff and 151 volunteers, by its own count.

    • Help close to home.

      Federally funded victim services helped 192,536 new victims aged sixty and over in nine months.

    • Find out what works.

      Leading researchers urge funding for studies of which fraud education and warnings actually work.

    Honest limits

    What money can't promise.

    • Thin evidence.

      There's little evidence yet on which kinds of help work best for fraud victims.

    • Lessons fade.

      The effects of fraud education decay over time, and a Danish bank's warning to its customers had no effect at all.

    • Most never report.

      Only 4.8% of people who experience fraud report it to a government agency or the Better Business Bureau.

    • Money sent is usually gone.

      Once a scammer has the money, it's usually gone, and fake recovery services took another $540.5 million from older victims.

    • Scams keep changing.

      Older Americans reported losing $352.5 million to schemes using artificial intelligence, including cloned voices of loved ones in a crisis.

    Hard questions

    Asked and answered.

    1. You might ask

      Isn't this the police's job?

      Ryan

      They do act: the Justice Department pursued more than 280 enforcement actions against over 600 defendants in a year. But the threat far exceeds what law enforcement can investigate.

    2. You might ask

      Can education really stop a scam?

      Ryan

      Somewhat, for a while: mailings cut repeat victimization by five percentage points, but the effects of lessons fade without reminders.

    3. You might ask

      Why focus on older people?

      Ryan

      Not because they're gullible: older adults report losing money at lower rates than younger adults. But they lose more each time, $38,500 on average, and have less time to rebuild.

    In the slider

    See what your fortune could do here.

    Protecting elders from scams

    The slider prices this cause with these numbers:

    • The Justice Department's elder fraud hotline costs about $70 for each call that reaches a case manager, by our arithmetic from its contract and its call counts.
    • The whole need is the people aged sixty and over who reported fraud to the FBI in a year, 201,266.
    • Evidence for any one kind of help is thin, and the true number of victims is far larger.
    Try it in the sliderTalk to Ryan

    More of the Blueprint

    Keep reading.

    5 more chapters on the way

    Back to Keep 100

    Sources

    Every number in this chapter, and where it came from.

    1. Source 1: 2025 IC3 Annual Report (opens in a new tab)

      FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, April 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Complaints people chose to file; most fraud goes unreported.

    2. Source 2: Testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (Nofziger) (opens in a new tab)

      AARP, 12 September 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

      The organization's own figures.

    3. Source 3: Calling All Fraud Fighters! Evidence From a Counter-Marketing Campaign to Prevent Repeat Fraud Victimization (Langton and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Journal of Consumer Affairs, 26 May 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A randomized trial of mailings to past fraud victims, with the US Postal Inspection Service.

    4. Source 4: Protecting Older Consumers 2024-2025: A Report of the Federal Trade Commission (opens in a new tab)

      Federal Trade Commission, 1 December 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    5. Source 5: Prevalence of Financial Fraud and Scams Among Older Adults in the United States: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Burnes and others) (opens in a new tab)

      American Journal of Public Health, 22 June 2017. Checked 16 October 2026.

    6. Source 6: Mental health and psychosocial sequelae of fraud victimization: a systematic review (Bai and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Frontiers in Psychology, 16 April 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

    7. Source 7: Forewarning reduces fraud susceptibility in vulnerable consumers (Scheibe and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2014. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A randomized field experiment with 895 past fraud victims.

    8. Source 8: Can Educational Interventions Reduce Susceptibility to Financial Fraud? (Burke, Kieffer, Mottola and Perez-Arce) (opens in a new tab)

      Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center, February 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.

      A randomized trial with adults of all ages.

    9. Source 9: Interagency Statement on Elder Financial Exploitation (OCC Bulletin 2024-34) (opens in a new tab)

      Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 4 December 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

    10. Source 10: FinCEN Issues Analysis on Elder Financial Exploitation (opens in a new tab)

      Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, 18 April 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

    11. Source 11: Annual Report to Congress on Department of Justice Activities to Combat Elder Fraud and Abuse (opens in a new tab)

      US Department of Justice, October 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    12. Source 12: National Elder Fraud Hotline (opens in a new tab)

      Office for Victims of Crime. Checked 16 October 2026.

    13. Source 13: The Scammers' Psychological Warfare: A Call to Arms (Hanoch and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4 June 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

    14. Source 14: Criminals Use Generative Artificial Intelligence to Facilitate Financial Fraud (opens in a new tab)

      FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 3 December 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.

    15. Source 15: Department of Justice Releases 2025 Annual Report to Congress on Efforts to Combat Elder Fraud and Abuse (opens in a new tab)

      US Department of Justice, 17 November 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    16. Source 16: National Elder Fraud Hotline task order (15PVCD22F00000015) (opens in a new tab)

      USAspending.gov. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Federal contract data: the hotline's full value over its term.