Age and Financial Abuse

While, in general, people of any age group can become victims of scamers, those over sixty are more vulnerable and people over 80 are extremely vulnerable. According to a study carried out in the United States in 2019, people aged 20 to 59 had lower median losses, people aged 70 to 79 suffered a median loss of 600 dollars and for people over 80, the median loss was 1,600 dollars. 

The scams most likely to be carried out are: online shopping scams (at least 14 million dollars lost), tech support scams (which stole 24 million dollars from victims over 60), imposter scams, romance scams (which hit a high of 304 million dollars in 2020; people ages 70plus have a median loss at 9,475 dollars), sweepstakes- and lottery-based scams (social media now accounts for one third of lottery scams) but also timeshare sale and resale scams (which conned over 30 million dollars total from people 60plus in 2019 alone), investments scams (25 million dollars) and health insurance scams (via).

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photograph by Fred Herzog via