A Money Talks News reader named Joan got in touch with me a couple of years ago with a story I’d heard all too often in my decades as a consumer reporter.
She was 76, widowed, and had just hung up the phone with a man who said he was from the Internal Revenue Service. He’d told her there was a warrant out for her arrest for tax fraud. The local police were on their way to her house unless she went to the bank, withdrew $8,000, and put it in a Bitcoin ATM at a gas station three miles away.
She was halfway out the door with her car keys when something stopped her. She put down the keys and called her son. He told her, gently, that the IRS doesn’t make phone calls. It sends letters.
She didn’t lose the money, but she nearly had. And the only thing that saved her was a moment of doubt.
Most people think they’re too smart to fall for these scams. Most people are wrong. I’ve interviewed dozens of people over the years who were the victims of fraud. It’s not just sad, it’s gut-wrenching.
According to the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report to Congress in 2024, total fraud losses reported by older adults (ages 60 and over) increased about fourfold from 2020 to 2024, rising from about $600 million to $2.4 billion. And the FTC believes actual losses (most fraud is unreported) may be closer to $81.5 billion.
The scammers are smart, organized, and increasingly using artificial intelligence. The good news is most scams follow a small set of patterns. Learn the patterns, and you stop falling victim.
Here are the seven rules to know.
1. The government does not call you
Repeat that out loud. The IRS does not call you. The Social Security Administration does not call you. Medicare does not call you. The FBI does not call you.
These agencies communicate primarily through the mail. They will never threaten you with arrest, demand immediate payment, or ask you to wire money or buy gift cards. Anyone who claims to be from a government agency on a phone call is, with rare exception, a scammer.
According to an FTC analysis, in 2024, 41% of older adults who reported losing $10,000 or more to a business or government imposter scam said the scam started with a phone call.
Hang up. Every time.
2. Don’t move money to ‘protect’ it
This is the playbook for what the FBI calls the “phantom hacker” scam. Someone calls claiming your accounts have been compromised. They tell you the only way to protect your money is to wire it to a secure account, withdraw it as cash for a courier, or convert it to gold or cryptocurrency.
It is always a scam. Every time. CNBC, citing FTC data, reported that older adults lost $700 million to imposter scams in 2024 — a more than fivefold increase from 2020.
No legitimate bank, government agency, or company will ever ask you to move money to keep it safe. If you’re ever told to do this, hang up and call your bank using a number from the back of your debit card.
3. Be deeply suspicious of urgency
Almost every scam relies on urgency. “You must pay in the next hour or you’ll be arrested.” “Your account will be closed at midnight.” “Your grandson is in jail and needs bail money right now.”
Real institutions don’t operate this way. They give you time to think, verify, and consult others. Scammers create panic specifically because panic disables your judgment.
The simplest defense: Any unexpected message demanding immediate action is a scam until proven otherwise. Slow down. Hang up. Call back using a verified number.
4. AI voice cloning is real — set up a family code word
This is the newest scary one. Scammers can take a 30-second clip of your grandchild’s voice from social media and clone it well enough to pull off a fake “I’m in trouble, send money” call. The voice on the other end sounds exactly like the person you love.
The defense is simple: Pick a family code word. Tell your kids and grandkids. Tell anyone who might one day call you in an emergency. If anyone calls in distress and asks for money, ask for the code word. If they don’t have it, hang up.
This sounds paranoid. It’s not. As I covered in “Over 60? Beware of 3 New Scams Draining Retiree Bank Accounts,” AI voice scams have become widespread. The five seconds of awkwardness asking for the code word is worth $15,000 in protected savings.
Quick aside — most internet financial advice comes from people who weren’t alive during the last recession. I’ve been writing about money for more than 40 years. Want rock-solid advice? Sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter. Takes 10 seconds. No fluff. No spam.
5. Watch out for investment pitches on social media
Investment scams now top the FTC’s list for the most damaging fraud category. According to the FTC’s 2024 data reported by McKnight’s Senior Living, older adults lost $744 million to investment scams in 2024 — far more than any other fraud type.
These are often “pig butchering” schemes. A friendly stranger meets you on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or a dating app. Over weeks or months, they build a relationship. Eventually, they introduce you to an “amazing investment opportunity” — usually crypto.
They show you a fake trading platform that displays growing balances. When you try to withdraw, there’s always one more “fee” or “tax.” Your money is gone.
The defense: Any investment pitched by someone you met online is a scam. Period. Real financial professionals don’t recruit clients through Facebook DMs.
6. Lock down your contact channels
Some practical hygiene that stops scams before they reach you:
Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry at donotcall.gov.
Use call-blocking apps or safety features built into your phone.
Don’t answer numbers you don’t recognize — let them go to voicemail.
Mark suspicious texts as spam and block the sender.
Set up transaction alerts on every bank and credit card account.
I never answer an unknown caller. Ever. They can leave a voicemail.
7. Have one trusted person you call before any unexpected money decision
This might be the single most powerful defense in the toolkit.
Pick one person — a child, sibling, financial advisor, attorney, close friend. Make a deal with yourself: Before sending money, withdrawing money, buying gold, buying gift cards, or making any unexpected financial move triggered by an outside contact, you call that contact first.
Almost every successful scam relies on isolating the victim. The scammer says, “Don’t tell anyone. This is confidential. The criminals could be listening.” That instruction is the tell. Real institutions don’t ask you to keep their requests secret.
If you have a deal with one trusted person, the scam fails. Joan’s son broke the spell when she called him. Patricia (from a story I covered separately) didn’t have anyone to call, and she lost $40,000 in a tech-support scam.
Here are a few more resources worth bookmarking. The FTC takes scam reports at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. AARP’s Fraud Watch Network has a free helpline (877-908-3360). And here are 10 common ways seniors get scammed.
The scammers are not stopping. They’re getting more sophisticated, more emotionally manipulative, and more technologically advanced every year. Your defense doesn’t have to be sophisticated. It has to be consistent.
As I used to say in the TV news stories I did about scams: There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on the vulnerable. Make sure they get there without your money.
Joan, by the way, became something of a one-woman scam-prevention operation in her senior community. She tells her story at every meeting. Her son told me that, at last count, she’d helped at least four neighbors hang up on scammers.
It’s worth telling people about. Pass it on.
