(Originally published at AARP.com)
Cybercrime reported to the FBI cost Americans 50 and older nearly $3 billion last year, a 62 percent increase from 2020, according to data from the bureau. The steep rise in dollar losses came despite a drop in incidents reported by older adults to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Americans ages 50 and over filed 166,831 complaints with the cybercrime unit in 2021, down from 191,768 the year before.
Overall, nearly a quarter of last year’s total cybercrime losses were borne by people 60 and older, the population that is the focus of the new report. Tech support scams, investment fraud and what the bureau terms “confidence fraud” — cons that play on victims’ emotions and affections, primarily via romance scams — were major drivers of rising fraud costs, collectively accounting for more than half of that age group’s losses.
Confidence frauds, which also include grandparent scams, were the costliest cons for older adults, with 2021 losses topping $432 million for victims age 60 and up, a 54 percent increase from the prior year.
But it’s tech support scams — in which crooks posing as IT pros from well-known tech companies charge hefty fees to fix fabricated computer problems — that have seen the most explosive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
>>Click here to read more at AARP.
>>Read about common scams targeting veterans and military families.
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