The Los Angeles City Council proclaimed Tuesday as Senior Fraud Awareness Day in an effort to highlight the pervasive issue and resources for victims of scams.
“I know that every one of our offices has had to deal with the situation from time to time where you’ve heard from one of your constituents who is terrified because something has happened where they feel like they’ve been taken advantage of,” Council President Paul Krekorian said Tuesday. “Somebody has scammed them, somebody has called them and tricked them into doing something, revealing information that made them vulnerable to theft or other kinds of abuse.”
Krekorian, alongside Councilwoman Heather Hutt, led Tuesday’s presentation and offered Adrienne O’Mansky, director of Stop Senior Scams Acting Program, an opportunity to comment on the issue. Nationally, $3 billion are lost due to senior fraud, and that’s only the “tip of the iceberg” as senior fraud is vastly underreported, O’Mansky said.
“There is a correlation of seniors who are homeless with senior fraud. If we don’t bring this out into the public, it’s going to get worse and worse,” O’Mansky told City News Service. “This is part of our homeless problem.”
O’Mansky has heard about seniors falling victims to scammers who promise discounted trips to beautiful resorts or vacations, offer gift cards, claim that seniors damaged their vehicles in a parking lot, or even ensnare victims with romantic scams. Recently, scammers have used AI technology to replicate loved ones’ voices to make it seem like a family member, friend or neighbor was in dire need of money.
She said cited three major reasons why seniors might not report that they were victims of a scam: That are embarrassed to report the incident, don’t know who or where to go to report the scam, or might feel that nothing can be done if they do report it.
“But, the reason why our program is very successful is because we’re a peer-to-peer education program,” O’Mansky told CNS. “So, seniors will come in and tell us their stories.”
The Stop Senior Scams Acting Program shares those stories, but also re-enacts them to arm seniors with the resources to identify and respond to possible scammers. Volunteers help run the program and experts on senior fraud are enlisted as a way to offer the best resources.
“We are like a support group. We change our program often to reflect the most prevalent scams because scammers change the way they do things,” O’Mansky said. “Especially during the pandemic, they had a big audience of a lot of people being home just waiting for that phone call.”
She warned that scammers use various methods to obtain the trust of their victims, such as profiling and using information found on the internet. Though the council proclaimed Tuesday as Senior Fraud Awareness Day, O’Mansky emphasized that anyone can fall victim to scammers — including young adults, people who have PhDs and veterans.
“It can happen to anyone, of any economic background, and it mostly impacts people that might want to do something for their family members,” O’Manksy told CNS. “But what we’re trying to do is open up the conversation.”
The City Council’s resolution was made along with national efforts to introduce a Senior Fraud Awareness Day. Hutt noted that Congress declared May 13 as National Senior Fraud Awareness Day.