They sometimes lose all the savings held in a bank account or 401(k), the agency said.
Criminals are increasingly pilfering the retirement and other financial accounts of older Americans via so-called "imposter" scams, the Federal Trade Commission reported Thursday.
The frauds tend to go like this: Scammers conjure a fake crisis and pose as trustworthy sources -- perhaps a representative for a bank or companies like Amazon, Apple or Microsoft, or workers at a federal agency like the Social Security Administration or FTC -- who can supposedly help them fix it.
In the process, they persuade unsuspecting victims to transfer their money to "keep it safe" or for another bogus reason, the FTC said.
In 2024, the FTC received 8,269 reports from adults age 60 and older, claiming to have lost at least $10,000 to an imposter scam. That figure is up 362% from 1,790 reports in 2020, according to FTC data.
Total losses among older Americans amounted to $700 million in 2024 -- a more than fivefold increase from $122 million in 2020, the FTC said.