Adults aged 80 or more years have reported to the Federal Trade Commission median losses of $1,800 per person due to fraud so far this year, according to new data released Wednesday along with a report to Congress.
The amount was the highest among all age groups, by far, with the next highest median loss due to fraud, at $802, occurring among those aged 70 to 79.
For the 80+ age group, there were 28.62 fraud loss reports per 100,000 people, the FTC said. The number was much lower than the number of reports for other age groups, with the next lowest number being 41.75, again among those aged 70 to 79.
The highest number of loss reports among those 80+ were filed due to tech support scams, followed by prize / sweepstakes / lottery scams, imposter: business scams, imposter: government scams and imposter: family/friend scams.
By total dollar amount lost among those 80+ so far this year, the top scams were prize / sweepstakes / lottery, with $15.4 million lost; imposter: government ($9 million); imposter: family / friend ($4.8 million); imposter: business ($3.8 million); and tech support ($3 million).
Median dollar losses from scams among those aged 80+, however, were ranked differently, with imposter: family / friend scams placing first, at $6,500 in median losses, followed by prize / sweepstakes / lottery ($5,600), imposter: government ($3,000), imposter: business ($828) and tech support ($700).
Overall, the report, “Protecting Older Consumers 2018-2019: A Report of the Federal Trade Commission,” had some good news: Adults aged 60 or more years appear to be less likely than those aged 20 to 59 years to lose money to fraud, at least judging by the incidents reported to the FTC. The bad news, however, the FTC said, is that the amount of money the older adults are losing to fraud is increasing. The report included 2018 data.
