More than 9 in 10 crimes against the elderly were property crimes, compared to fewer than 4 in 10 crimes against persons age 12 to 24. Such scams range from the sale of misidentified rare coins and the telemarketing of nonexistent oil wells to the sale of worthless or overpriced insurance policies and misrepresentations used to sell unnecessary and overpriced living trusts and personal emergency response systems. The local law enforcement agencies intend to make seniors fully aware of the many scams often perpetuated against them by con artists. They help seniors avoid becoming victims of consumer fraud, emphasizing that the most effective way to attack this problem is through prevention. Senior citizens in the county and across the state are easy targets for con artists.
Seniors own more than half of all financial assets in America.
At the same time, they are vulnerable. While people over 65 comprise 11 percent of the U.S. population, they represent roughly 30 percent of scam victims, according to a U.S. Subcommittee on Health and Long-Term Care. As a result, seniors lose billions of unrecoverable dollars each year to fraud. The disproportionate victimization of older people in connection with consumer fraud is partly attributable to generational and economic factors. Seniors grew up in an era when business was done on a handshake.