Scams have proliferated in the age of email, texts, social media and online payments, but people over 60 have suffered the largest financial losses. People of all ages can be tricked into parting with their money. But older individuals may have unique vulnerabilities and find it harder to recover from the financial and emotional fallout.
A pop-up message and disembodied voice coming through her computer startled Jane Isay, then 81. The voice said there was a problem with her bank account and gave her a number to call.Isay, a former book editor who worked and lived independently, did what the message said: She dialed the number on the screen. The man who answered told her, “Your bank account is about to be scammed.
They’re planning to take $35,000 out of your account, so you need to get the money out now.” Isay was instructed to go to her bank and make a withdrawal. She was warned not to call the bank, which had already been taken over by the “thieves.” “I think of myself as a pretty smart person,” Isay says. By the time she arrived at the second, the head teller had been alerted and waved her over.
The teller wrote a note: “You’re being scammed, don’t say anything. We’ve called the police.” Isay was the third person that day involved in this scam, including one woman who lost her life savings, the teller later told her. Financial exploitation is estimated to harm between 5 percent and 17 percent of people over 60.
Data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the Federal Trade Commission show that financial crimes targeting older adults surged from about $600 million in 2020 to between $2.4 billion and $5 billion in 2024. Fraud continued to climb in 2025: Losses reported to the FBI added up to nearly $7.75 billion, while a new report from the FTC estimates that older adults lost up to $119.5 billion that year alone. And all these numbers may be underestimates, as the crimes are vastly underreported, particularly if the fraud is committed by a family member.
When older victims are successfully scammed, they tend to lose more than younger people do — in a subset of cases, enough to wipe out an entire nest egg, with no working years left to rebuild it. Financial losses recorded for those 60 and over related to fraud have increased fivefold from 2020 to 2025. Government agencies estimate the actual number is even greater, due to many who don’t report being scammed.
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