When you read the title above, what was the age of the person that came to mind? If you are like most people, the first person you thought of was a child. However, older adults are just as vulnerable as children online.
Financial losses from elder fraud and abuse are estimated to total more than $36 billion per year. More and more of that fraud is happening online. Con artists are routinely seeking out older adults on online dating sites and social networking sites in hopes of swindling them out of a few bucks.
Earlier this year, Time’s Money Magazine highlighted the plight of a widow who had voluntarily wired over $1 million to a new friend she had met on Match.com a few months after her husband died. Her new friend gained her confidence and offered her a sympathetic ear as she struggled to move on after the death of her husband and a breast cancer diagnosis. He offered to help her with her finances as a favor to her. It was not until her bank’s fraud center called that she realize she had been taken advantage of.
This story has a relatively happy ending because the fraud was detected and stopped before she was completely bankrupted, and the fraudster was brought to justice. Unsurprisingly, she was not his only victim.
The best way to protect your older friends and family from a similar fate is to check in on them frequently. Educate them about the risks associated with communicating with strangers online, even if the stranger becomes a “friend.” But more importantly, make sure your loved ones know that you care for them and are there for them. A lot of the stories about online elder abuse mention the fact that the victim was lonely, so giving your loved ones more of your time and attention may just save them from falling into the trap of a fraudster.
A more extreme alternative is to set up a financial guardianship or power of attorney for your loved one. Having a second set of trusted eyes overseeing your loved one’s finances is probably a good thing if they are particularly vulnerable, or have started to exhibit some of the signs of dementia.