Two-Fifths of Senior Citizens Suffer Frequent Fraud Attempts

Two-fifths (40%) of elderly adults in the UK experience mostly phone-based fraud attempts on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, according to a new study.

University of Portsmouth researchers interviewed nearly 2000 participants to compile its study, Fear and phoning: Telephones, fraud, and older adults in the UK. More than 80% of those who took part were over the age of 75.

The research also found that two-thirds of the respondents had experienced at least one fraud attempt in the past six months, while a fifth (20%) said they’re being harassed every week.

Scammers are mainly picking up the phone to try and trick their victims. Three-quarters (75%) of attempted fraud recorded by the survey was conducted via telephone: 60% through voice calls and 11% via text messages.

Read more on phone fraud: International Police Operation Dismantles Phone Scam Network

The research contains harrowing accounts from elderly respondents who say the relentless pressure from scammers has affected their mental health and quality of life, forcing them to live in a constant state of fear and suspicion.

One 78-year-old lady was tricked into signing two cheques of nearly £100,000 for scammers who called soon after her husband had died. She was apparently only compensated after her daughter approached the Financial Ombudsman to put pressure on her bank.

Industrial Scale Fraud

Study author Mark Button, director of the Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime in the university’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said older technologies are still being used on “an industrial scale” to conduct fraud. 

“These telephone calls have become for some older adults something they experience on a daily or weekly basis. Even though many older adults understand these are fraud and quickly hang up, for some, these attempts have significant impacts,” he added.  

“Our study reveals this impact has not yet been seriously investigated. More research needs to be conducted to explore the impact of attempted frauds on individuals’ fear of crime and quality of life among all age groups.”

However, data from US consumer protection agency the FTC tells a slightly different story, suggesting phone-based fraud is becoming less popular among scammers.

Over the period 2020-2023 the share of email and text-based scams rose sharply, while those conducted via phone dropped abruptly, it found. 

Phone-based impersonation attempts used to comprise 67% of the total, but that figure is now 32%. Meanwhile, email scams soared from 10% to 26% over the period and text-based impersonation fraud increased from 9% to 14%, the FTC said.