Younger adults ages 20-29 reported losing money more often than older adults ages 70-79, the FTC found. But when older adults did lose money, they lost more. Many retirees have assets like savings, pensions, life insurance policies or property for scammers to target.
Lee urges consumers to hang up and call the company or institution in question at an official number. She said the man in pictures she received was a plastic surgeon from Spain whose photos have been stolen and used by scammers. “It’ll take 30 or 40 seconds longer, but go ahead and do that because it could save you a lot of money every time,” he said.
“Just don’t pay people with gift cards,” Maxson said. “No legitimate company or individual is going to ask you to buy large quantities of gift cards and then read the numbers off the cards. That is exclusively a payment method of fraudsters.”