The Scams Targeting Americans Over 60 Right Now — and How to Lock Down Your Identity

People 60 and older sent the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center 201,266 fraud complaints in 2025, and the losses they reported added up to $7.7 billion. That’s 59% more than in 2024. It also leaves out everyone who never came forward to that one agency.

Most of that money isn’t lost to clumsy emails with bad spelling. It goes out over the phone, in calm conversations with someone who claims to be your bank, a federal agent, a computer technician or your grandchild. The newest version of that last one uses software to copy a real voice.

None of this calls for becoming a security expert. Almost every one of these scams needs you to do two things. You have to act fast, and you have to send the money in a way nobody can reverse. Once you can see those two moves coming, most of the scripts fall apart.

There’s a second, quieter risk. After years of data breaches, your Social Security number and date of birth may already be in criminal hands, sitting in a file somebody bought for a few dollars. You can’t pull that information back. You can make it much harder to use, and the main tools are free.

The number: $7.7 billion. People 60 and older reported that much in fraud losses in 2025, spread over 201,266 complaints to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. On average, each reported loss topped $38,000. The true total is likely higher, since the FBI has said for years that many victims never report at all.

The call that sounds like your grandchild

A typical call goes something like this, going by warnings from the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI.

The phone rings. A young voice, shaky and upset, says there’s been a car accident or an arrest. It sounds like your grandson. He begs you not to tell his parents. Then someone else takes the phone, a “lawyer” or an “officer,” who says bail or a fee has to be paid today.

A voice like that is easier to fake than you’d think. The FTC warns that all a scammer needs is “a short audio clip” of a family member’s voice, which he can pull from videos posted online, plus a voice-cloning program. In December 2024 the FBI put out a public alert saying criminals are generating short audio clips of a loved one’s voice to pose as a relative in a crisis and ask for money right away.

These callers lean on two pressures, according to the FTC. Urgency: you’re the only one who can help, and it has to be now. Secrecy: don’t tell anyone. They’ll ask for a wire transfer, cryptocurrency, a payment app, or gift cards with the numbers read over the phone. What those methods share is that once the money moves, it’s very hard to get back.

The five scripts behind most of the losses

Investment fraud cost people over 60 more than any other category in 2025: about $3.5 billion in reported losses. Cryptocurrency was behind most of it. Tech-support scams came in second, at just over $1 billion.

The FTC looked at the biggest losses in a report published in August 2025. Among older adults hit by impostor scams (scammers posing as someone you trust), reports of $10,000-plus losses rose more than fourfold from 2020 to 2024. Reports of losses above $100,000 rose nearly sevenfold. The FTC tied these cases to three lies: someone is using your accounts, your information is being used to commit crimes, or your computer has a security problem. Each one ends the same way. The caller offers to help you “protect” your money by moving it.

Then there’s the courier version, which the FBI has warned about since early 2024. Victims are told to pull out cash or buy gold bars, and a courier shows up at the house to collect. The FBI’s warning is blunt: the U.S. government and legitimate businesses will never ask you to buy gold or other precious metals.

Spotting the scripts is a start. A handful of habits and account settings go further, because they still protect you on a day when you’re tired, worried or caught off guard, and setting them up takes about an hour.

Set up a family code word tonight

The FBI’s alert on AI-enabled fraud includes this advice: create a secret word or phrase with your family to verify identity. It costs nothing and takes one conversation over dinner.

1. Pick a word or short phrase that isn’t online. Not a pet’s name, a street or a birthday. Something odd that everyone will remember.
2. Share it in person or by phone with close family. Don’t text it or email it.
3. Agree on the rule. Anyone who calls asking for money, in any emergency, gets asked for the word. No word, no money.
4. Add a fallback. The FTC suggests hanging up and calling the person back on a number you know is theirs. If they don’t answer, call another relative. You can also ask a question only the real person could answer.

A freeze has limits. It won’t stop charges on cards you already have, and it can’t stop someone from using your Social Security number to file a tax return or claim benefits. It does nothing about a scam call. It’s a guard against new credit opened in your name, and that’s all.

There’s a lighter option, too: a fraud alert. Once it’s on, a lender has to check that it’s really you before opening anything in your name. The first alert lasts one year, and you can renew it. You only need to contact one bureau, since that one has to pass the alert along to the other two.

Close the tax and benefits doors

A credit freeze never reaches some of the places your Social Security number can be misused, your tax return among them. Two free steps close the biggest gaps.

The IRS Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN). It’s six digits, and once you have one, nobody else can file a tax return with your Social Security number (that’s how the IRS puts it). You can get one if you have an SSN or an ITIN (the IRS tax ID for people who can’t get an SSN) and can verify your identity. Your online account at IRS.gov is the fastest way. A new PIN comes each year, and you pass it along to whoever prepares your return.

Claim your online accounts before someone else does. That means a my Social Security account at SSA.gov and an online account at IRS.gov, even if you’ll hardly ever log in. It’s harder for a stranger to open an account in your name when one’s already there, locked with your own password and a second verification step.

Two habits round this out. Your credit reports are free at AnnualCreditReport.com, so pull them. At your bank, turn on text or email alerts for every withdrawal and transfer; then a problem shows up within minutes, not on next month’s statement.

If you only get to one thing in this section, I’d do the bank alerts, even before the two tax and benefits steps. They’re the one tool here that catches money leaving an account you already have.

Is paid identity protection worth it?

You’ll see plenty of advertising for identity theft protection, credit monitoring and family plans aimed at older adults. Some of these services are useful. None of them replaces the free steps above.

The FTC draws the line clearly. Credit monitoring tells you about changes on your credit report, but it won’t alert you when someone withdraws money from your bank account. Identity monitoring scans databases for your information, but it won’t warn you if someone files a tax return in your name. Both tell you about a problem after it’s started. A freeze and an IP PIN work earlier, by blocking the attempt.

What a paid plan can add is convenience and help with cleanup: monitoring at all three bureaus in one dashboard, alerts when your data turns up in a known breach, insurance that reimburses certain recovery costs, and a caseworker who handles the calls and paperwork if your identity is stolen. For an adult child managing a parent’s finances from another state, or anyone who doesn’t want to watch accounts personally, that can be money well spent.

If you’re comparing plans, these are the things to pin down:

• Does it watch all three credit bureaus, or just one?
• The insurance. What exactly does it cover, and what’s left out? Money you sent to a scammer yourself often isn’t covered.
• Whether there’s a family or couple’s plan, and whether an adult child can get the alerts.
• The price after year one, because introductory rates often go up at renewal.
• Call blocking or scam-call screening: included, or sold separately?

Open your bank app, your card account and your insurance policy before you buy. Basic monitoring may already come free with one of them, and paying for it twice makes no sense.

Already sent money or shared information?

If you feel foolish, you’re in very large company, and it’s no reason to wait. The faster you call, the better the chance a transfer can still be stopped.

1. Your bank or card issuer gets the first call, right away. Dial the number printed on the back of your card. Ask them to stop the transfer, or try to claw the money back, and to watch the account for anything else.
2. If you paid with gift cards, call the card company. Don’t throw away the cards or the receipts.
3. Report it. Two places take the report: the FBI at ic3.gov and the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Filing can feel like a chore. If you’re 60 or older, the Justice Department’s Elder Fraud Hotline will walk you through it at 833-372-8311 (833-FRAUD-11), Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern.
4. If you gave out your Social Security number or account details, IdentityTheft.gov is the next stop. The FTC runs it, and it builds you a free recovery plan, step by step. Get the credit freezes in place that same day.
5. Watch for the second wave. People who’ve lost money often get calls from “recovery” firms or fake agents offering to get it back, for a fee. In 2025, the FBI logged 10,516 recovery-scam complaints from people of all ages, not just older adults. Reported losses: $1.4 billion. Real law enforcement won’t charge you a cent to investigate.

The one-hour plan

Tonight, agree on a family code word. This week, freeze your credit at all three bureaus, request an IRS Identity Protection PIN and turn on bank alerts. After that, look at whether a paid monitoring plan adds anything you’d actually use.

Then tape one line near the phone. No real bank, agency or grandchild needs you to move money in secret within the hour, so when a call asks for speed and silence together, hang up and dial a number you already trust.