32 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2023 PSP SHOWCASE Older adults are targets for financial exploitation because they tend to possess more wealth than others, accumulated over their lifetime through hard work and saving. A decline in mental faculties for some seniors also makes them vulnerable, especially residents of nursing facilities targeted by predators who take advantage of victims’ memory loss. Suspicious Activity Report filings on elder financial exploitation quadrupled from 2013 to 2017, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One-third of the individuals who lost money were ages 80 and older, and adults ages 70 to 79 had the highest average monetary loss. Seniors are often targeted through the internet, mail, phone, in-home visits and free offers tailored to large groups of seniors. Though they are always changing, the following are the most common elder scams happening now, and ways banks can help combat this problem. Medicare & Health Insurance Scams Perpetrators may pose as a Medicare representative to get personal information, or provide bogus services at makeshift mobile clinics, then use the information to bill Medicare and pocket the money. Some even make false offers for free medical supplies or checkups that require the victim to provide their Medicare information and credit card number for supposed “shipping and handling” fees. Consumers also report phony “free” back, neck or knee brace offers. Scammers claim to be a Medicare or medical supply representative or health insurance company. If interest is shown, they will ask for sensiTop Scams Targeting Seniors And what community banks can do to help tive information such as Medicare or Social Security numbers. Another of the latest Medicare scams to pop up is one in which scammers are emailing, calling and even knocking on doors, claiming to be from Medicare and offering all sorts of pandemic-related services if the target will “verify” a Medicare ID number. Among the offers is to send new cards the scammers claim contain microchips. Some posers have been asking for payment to move beneficiaries up in line for the COVID-19 vaccine. Google Voice Scam This applies to anyone who may have posted an online notice – an item for sale, for example, or a lost pet poster – and included a personal phone number. The scammer will call and pretend to be interested, but say they want to verify first that the target isn’t a scammer. They’ll send a verification code from Google Voice (their virtual phone and text service) then ask the target to read it back. In actuality, they are setting up a Google Voice account in the target’s name. They can go on to perpetrate scams and pretend to be another, hiding their footprint from law enforcement. Zoom Phishing Emails The target receives an email, text or social media message with the Zoom logo, telling them to click on a link because their account is suspended, or they missed a meeting. Clicking exposes them to the risk of an upload of malware, where personal information could become available for identity theft. Aimee Leeper Director of Marketing and Communications CRA Partners Aimee.Leeper @SHCPfoundation.org CRA Partners, powered by the Senior Housing Crime Prevention Foundation, is a Preferred Service Provider of the Indiana Bankers Association.
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