Most people picture a scam victim as someone careless. Someone who wasn’t paying attention, or didn’t know any better. After 20 years building and watching these products from the inside, I can tell you that’s not who gets caught. The people who lose money to a government impersonation call are usually careful, responsible adults who…
The FTC recorded 64,003 romance scam reports in 2023, with total losses of $1.14 billion. The median reported loss was $2,000, the highest of any imposter scam category. Those are official figures. AARP research found that 55 percent of adults 50 and older who lost money in a romance scam didn’t report it anywhere. The…
The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center report recorded 47,794 complaints tied to tech support fraud, with about $2.13 billion in reported losses. Among victims 60 and older, tech and customer support scams alone produced more than $1 billion in losses from about 21,000 complaints. Here’s the thing the headline numbers don’t show: the “tech…
If you’re looking for practical ways to protect an aging parent from scams, the FBI’s most recent elder fraud report offers a sobering backdrop: $7.7 billion in losses from more than 201,000 complaints by victims 60 and older in 2025 alone. That’s a 37 percent jump from the year before, and the average loss now…