The Federal Trade Commission has issued its latest report to Congress on protecting older adults, which highlights key trends based on fraud reports by older adults, and the FTC’s multipronged efforts to combat the problem through law enforcement actions, rulemaking, and outreach and education programs.
The report, Protecting Older Consumers, 2023-2024, A Report of the Federal Trade Commission, also outlines a number of actions taken by the FTC-led Scams Against Older Adults Advisory Group, which was created as a result of 2022’s Stop Senior Scams Act. The group, which includes representatives from numerous federal and state government agencies, developed guidance designed to help interrupt scams that target seniors and prepared a report highlighting what research says are the challenges to effective consumer education messaging to prevent scams.
"Through our cases, rulemaking, and outreach, we’re taking every step we can to stop scams targeting older adults and help them protect themselves,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This report highlights that work and the key actions of the working group formed under the Stop Senior Scams Act.”
Older Adult Fraud Reporting
The report finds that older adults reported losing more than $1.9 billion to fraud in 2023.
Because the vast majority of frauds are not reported, this figure represents only a fraction of the overall cost of fraud to older consumers in 2023, which the FTC estimates may be as high as $61.5 billion.
As in prior years, the analysis of fraud reports received by the FTC in 2023 showed that adults aged 60 and over were less likely to report losing money to fraud than adults aged 18-59. When they did report losing money, though, adults over 60 often reported losing substantially more than younger adults. Consumers 80 and older reported losing a median of $1,450 to fraud, while those in their seventies reported a median loss of $804. The number of older adults reporting losses of $100,000 or more has increased more than threefold since 2020.
The analysis included in the report to Congress also found that adults 60 and older were more than five times as likely as adults aged 18 to 59 to report losing money to a tech support scam. Older adults were nearly three times as likely to report a loss to a prize, lottery or sweepstakes scam, and 53% more likely to report losing money to a friend or family impersonation scam.
Older adults report losing more money, $538 million—a 34% increase over 2022, to investment scams caused than any other type of fraud, followed by business imposters at $311 million (up 16% from 2022), and romance scams at $277 million (up 16% from 2022).
The report shows that older adults reported losing far more money to fraud using bank transfers and cryptocurrency than any other methods of payment. Reports indicating cryptocurrency as the payment method often involved the use of Bitcoin ATM machines. Gift cards continued to be the most frequently reported payment method on a number of common fraud types, including tech support scams and family and friend impersonation scams.
Scams Against Older Adults Advisory Group
The report also highlights actions taken by the Advisory Group’s committees. The group’s consumer education committee implemented multiple consumer education pilot programs, and experimented with new materials, partnerships, or communication channels to provide more effective education on scams to older adults. It also created a simple reference sheet outlining best practices on effective consumer outreach that anyone can use in their education efforts.
The industry training committee reviewed current training methods and identified best practices and gaps that exist across industries on how employees are trained to stop and prevent fraud. The committee produced guidance documents designed to help companies create or enhance existing trainings for employees, and multiple committee members reported successes within their organization in applying the guidance.
The technology and new methods committee established multiple working groups addressing issues from ways to better help recover funds lost by consumers to scammers, particularly through bank transfers, as well as ways to reduce fraud in the gift card system and in text messaging. The committee is also addressing ways to enhance information sharing to help prevent fraud, particularly among private companies.
In addition, the working group’s research committee presented findings from a review of research across academic literature on effective scam prevention messaging. Its findings outlined a number of challenges to effective messaging both to older adults and the general public and included recommendations based on those findings. It also includes recommendations on what additional research would be useful in developing more effective scam prevention messaging.
The Scams Against Older Adults deliverables are available to the public at ftc.gov/olderadults.
Cases, Referrals and Outreach
The report focuses on key actions the FTC has taken to protect older consumers, including a number of enforcement actions that had a particular impact on older consumers. The report also highlights work to target fraud reports with a high dollar loss for fast referral to the FBI, which may be able to assist consumers in recovering or stopping payment of funds, including a number of examples of successful referrals.
The report highlights work by the FTC to enact rules designed to provide more ability for the agency to seek money back for consumers after the Supreme Court’s AMG Capital Management decision. The FTC continues to urge Congress to amend Section 13(b) of the FTC Act to provide the FTC the ability to seek equitable monetary remedies so it can provide refunds to harmed consumers and prevent violators from benefitting from their schemes by keeping their illegally gained profits.
Finally, the report details the FTC’s outreach and education efforts through such programs as the Pass it On campaign, which focuses on providing fraud prevention resources to older adults so they can help protect their communities by sharing the information and materials with family and friends.
The Commission vote authorizing the report to Congress was 5-0. Official news published at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/ftc-issues-annual-report-congress-agencys-actions-protect-older-adults
