Every year millions of people report fraud, scams, and bad business practices to the FTC. Your stories help us better understand how fraud affects every community. During National Consumer Protection Week, we’re offering information and advice for some of these communities, and today we’re focusing on scams that have an impact on older adults.
- Scammers are using social media for investment, romance, and online shopping scams. More than one in four people who reported losing money to fraud from 2020 - 2021 said it started on social media with an ad, a post, or a message. The most money was lost to investment and romance scams.
- Romance scammers pursue people on dating apps and social media with fake tales of love, then demand payments with gift cards, wire transfers, and cryptocurrency. The median reported loss across all romance scam reports was $2,400 last year, but the amount was higher among older adults. People 70 and over reported the highest median losses at $9,000.
- Imposters posing as Amazon workers tricked people with messages about suspicious activity or unauthorized purchases on their accounts. Among people age 60 and over who reported the calls in 2020-2021, the median reported loss was $1,500, compared to $814 for people under age 60.
If you spot one of these — or another — scam, please tell us at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. It’s easy to report and the information you give helps protect your community. Want more consumer protection news? Read common scams and sign up for email updates.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
Received a letter today with only a phone number 888-915-7972.. Says important Medicare Information..
Received 15 auto Warren tee calls in 7 days 3 calls to grandpa I had s accident. 1 for grand ma. 3 for wanting confirmation on some one made charges to my Amazon account. I don't have one