Financial Elder Abuse Statistics

Financial Elder Abuse Statistics

Financial criminals have no boundaries when it comes to picking a victim to steal money from. Where most of the world sees the older population as people to respect, protect, and care for, fraudsters jump at every opportunity to take advantage of older adults. Organizations like the FBI, the FTC, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) each gather data on financial elder abuse based on reports through their respective networks and we’ve gone through that data to provide you with key financial elder abuse statistics.

Financial Elder Abuse on the Rise

According to the FBI, financial elder abuse and fraud targeting older adults is on the rise, and so are losses from these fraud attempts.

• From January to May of 2024, there was over $1.6 billion in reported losses from fraud targeting older adults – this is an increase of around $300 million from the same time period in 2023.
• In 2023, fraud targeting older adults resulted in $3.4 billion in losses – and that number is set to increase for 2024.
• Elder fraud complaints increased by 14% in 2023 – this is a result of both an increase in fraud attempts and an increase of reporting methods.
• Losses from investment scams increased by 419% in 2023 from 2021 and the amount of older adult victims increased by 209% in the same time period.

The Methods Scammers – and Others – Use

Scammers employ a variety of tactics to rob older adults of their life savings, something that is monitored and reported on by FinCEN every year.

• FinCEN differentiates between elder scams, where the perpetrator is a complete stranger, and elder theft, where the victim personally knows the perpetrator.
• In around 40% of cases of elder theft, the victim’s own children are the perpetrator.
• Around 80% of all reported cases of financial elder abuse were elder scams.
• 22% of all elder scams were account takeover scams, 10% were tech support scams, 9% were romance, or pig butchering, scams, and 8% were impersonation scams – 23% of scams were unidentified and the remaining 28% of scams were a combination of 41 different methods.
• In cases of elder theft, direct fund transfers, fraudulent checks, and the victim’s credit and debit card were the top three vehicles for moving the victim’s funds.
• The average loss in reported elder scams was $129,483 and the average loss in reported elder thefts was $98,863.

Financial Elder Abuse by Age Group

Each year, the FTC releases an annual report of fraud data collected by the Consumer Sentinel Network. The following data is from their report on 2023.

• 199,453 reported victims of fraud were 60-69, 144,461 were 70-79, and 48,478 were 80 and over.
• Over $980 million in losses were reported by those aged 60-69, more than any other age group – over $700 million in losses were reported by those aged 70-79, and over $244 million in losses were reported by those aged 80 and over.
• Of all identity thefts reported, older adults had less than any other age group, with 119,879 reports from those aged 60 and older – those aged 3039 had over double the amount of reports at 272,971.