San Diego Organization Warns of Elder Fraud

In honor of International Fraud Week (Nov. 17-23), the San Diego Seniors Community Foundation and the FBI San Diego Citizens Academy are hosting Elder Fraud Prevention seminars at the Norman Park Senior Center.

“Educating our seniors about fraud prevention is critical in today’s digital age where scammers are more sophisticated than ever,” said Kristoffer Kelly, director of partnerships at SDSCF. “These sessions empower seniors and their families with the tools to recognize and avoid scams, helping protect their financial security and peace of mind. Scams today don’t discriminate based on education level or background, and they’re getting more convincing every day. Everyone needs to be vigilant.”

In 2023, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reportedly received more than 880,000 complaints, with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion. In the same year, total losses reported to the IC3 by individuals over the age of 60 topped $3.4 billion, an 11 percent increase in reported losses from 2022. There was also a 14 percent increase in complaints filed with IC3 by elderly victims.

Nationwide, tech support fraud was the number one crime type impacting seniors (over age 60), with nearly 18,000 complaints and almost $600 million in reported losses, while investment scams continued to be the costliest to the elderly with losses exceeding $1.2 billion.

Common frauds regularly affecting individuals over age 60 include:

• Confidence/Romance Scam: Criminals pose as interested romantic partners through dating websites to capitalize on their elderly victims’ desire to find companions.
• Tech Support Scam: Criminals pose as tech support representatives and offer to fix nonexistent computer issues, gaining remote access to victims’ devices and, thus, their sensitive information.
• Cryptocurrency Scam: Scammers convince targeted individuals to withdraw large sums of cash and deposit it into cryptocurrency ATMs or kiosks at locations provided by the scammers. Once cash is deposited and converted into cryptocurrency, the scammer transfers it to other cryptocurrency accounts.
• Investment Scam: Investment fraud involves complex financial crimes often characterized as low-risk investments with guaranteed returns. They include advanced fee frauds, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, market manipulation fraud, real estate investing, and trust-based investing such as cryptocurrency investment scams.

The free seminars will take place at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13 at the Norman Park Senior Center and 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19 at the San Marcos Senior Activity Center. To register, visit fbisdcaaa.org/elderfraud.

For more information, visit sdscf.org or fbisdcaaa.org/elderfraud.