Being open and aware of what might be going on in an elderly person’s life – and maybe that’s of your mother or father — and talking about their day-to-day challenges and watching over them is important for many reasons.
As much as we’d like to believe in the ever-present milk of human kindness, we all know that there are people out there who would like to relieve us of our hard-earned money the illegal way – through fraud and scams.
No one is impervious to these scammers. We are not protected by race, religion, age or economic status. The best tool we all share is knowledge – knowing what scams are out there, and how to deal with the perpetrators should we encounter them.
According to a 2009 snapshot of Internet crime within the previous year, here is a profile of a typical fraud perpetrator:
- 77.4% were male
- 50% resided in one of the following states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, District of Columbia, and Washington.
- The majority of reported perpetrators (66.1%) were from the United States; however, a significant number of perpetrators where also located in the United Kingdom, Nigeria , Canada , China, and South Africa.
Among those reporting these crimes:
- 55.4% were male
- Nearly half were between the ages of 30 and 50 and one-third resided in one of the four most populated states: California, Florida, Texas, and New York.
- While most were from the United States (92.4%), a number of complaints came from Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, and France.
- Males lost more money than females (ratio of $1.69 dollars lost per male to every $1.00 dollar lost per female). This may be a function of both online purchasing differences by gender and the type of fraudulent schemes by which the individuals were victimized.
- E-mail (74.0%) and web pages (28.9%) were the two primary mechanisms by which the fraudulent contact took place.
The study finds that over 6% of these victims were people aged 60 and older.
Consumer Fraud Reporting (www.consumerfraudreporting.org) offers a comprehensive array of information that serve as an easy reference tool for deciding if you have the potential of falling victim to a scam.
These include tips on:
- How to identify a fraud or scam
- How to report a fraud or scam
- What to do if you have fallen victim to a scammer by providing personal information (ID Theft)
- Tips on how to protect your self against scams
- Resource information about government agencies and publications that are available to help you in any of these situations
The best advice is to use common sense. That, coupled with good resources and information, will go a long way in the fight against fraud.
One of the ways in which you can help prevent older adults from becoming a victim to fraud or scams is to ensure that someone is watching over them on a more frequent basis, which is what our Home Instead CAREGivers do. If you have a senior who is living alone and needs home care or companionship service in Sonoma County, just give us a call at 707.586.1516 anytime and we’ll be glad to answer your questions about how we help to watch over your elderly loved one.
