Vulnerability to Government Impersonation Scams

Older adults may be even more vulnerable to fraud and scams than previously thought, according to an NIA-funded study that mimicked a real-world government imposter scam. The results suggest that a sizable minority of older adults, including those without cognitive impairment, are vulnerable to fraud and scams. The study results were published in JAMA Network Open

Previous research on the vulnerability of older adults to financial fraud and scams has largely relied on self-reported data. To assess a more real-world response, researchers from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago, in collaboration with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation, conducted an experiment that mimicked imposter scams. The participants — 644 older adults (on average, age 85) in the Rush Memory and Aging Project — were contacted by a fictitious government agency about unusual activity on their Social Security and Medicare accounts that required verification.

Researchers classified how the older adults responded to the scam into three groups: no engagement (did not answer the phone or call in), engagement (answered or called in but raised skepticism and did not provide personal information), and conversion (answered or called in without skepticism or provided personal information). Most of the participants did not engage (68.5%). However, when they answered or called in, more of the participants engaged without skepticism (16.4%) than with skepticism (15.1%), and 12% of the participants even provided personal information.

The researchers also compared key characteristics across the engagement groups and found differences in cognition, financial literacy, and scam awareness. Older adults who engaged but raised skepticism scored the highest of all three groups on cognitive and financial literacy tests. This group also had the fewest number of people with dementia.

Those in the conversion group had the lowest scam awareness. When participants with dementia were excluded from analysis, cognition and financial literacy differences were no longer statistically significant, but those in the conversion group still scored lowest in scam awareness.

The generalizability of these findings to the general aging population may be limited, as participants were majority White, women, and highly educated. Because of the high levels of education among participants and the use of less intensive tactics than actual scammers, there is likely even more conversion among older adults in real-world scenarios. Increasing scam awareness and further exploring factors associated with vulnerability are important steps to decrease the risk of fraud victimization for this population.

Source: NIH