MONEY: HOW TO PROTECT PARENTS FROM FINANCIAL SCAMS

When a scam artist called Cameron Huddleston’s mom to tell her to wire money in order to claim a prize, Huddleston had to intercept the calls

Her mom, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, was convinced she had to wire the money as soon as possible.

“That was a wake-up call for me. If you have any cognitive decline, you don’t see those red flags anymore,” says Huddleston, who lives in Kentucky and is the director of education at Carefull, a service built to protect aging adults’ daily finances. She also wrote the book “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk,” on how to have important conversations about money with your parents.

Scam artists often target older adults, partly because they have amassed greater wealth. “If you are thinking from a criminal’s perspective, which target will give you the greatest returns: a broke 20-something who is struggling with student loans or a baby boomer with a couple million dollars of retirement assets?” asks Marti DeLiema, assistant professor of social work at University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work.

According to the Federal Trade Commission , consumers age 60 and older filed 467,340 fraud reports in 2021, reporting total losses of more than $1 billion. Overall, consumers age 60 and older are less likely to report losing money to fraud than those age 18-59. But when they do report a monetary loss, it tends to be for more money — especially among those 80 and older. They had the highest median loss of all groups, at $1,500. The FTC reports that older adults are more likely than younger adults to lose money on scams involving tech support, prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries, and family and friend impersonation.

Here are some steps fraud experts suggest taking to protect your parents and other older adults you care about from falling victim.