Phone scams swindled Baby Boomers out of $3.4B in 2023: FBI

Baby Boomers were scammed out of more than $3.4 billion in 2023 by fraudsters who phone the aging victims with bogus offers of tech support or to wire money to fake accounts — leaving some “destitute,” federal officials said.

Losses from scams reported by Americans over the age of 60 surged 11% last year from the previous year, according to an FBI report released Tuesday.

In all, the feds received more than 100,000 complaints from Baby Boomers — those between the ages of 59 and 77 — who said they had fallen victim to these scams.

Nearly 6,000 of those lost more than $100,000.

“It can be a devastating impact to older Americans who lack the ability to go out and make money,” Deputy Assistant Director James Barnacle of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division said.

“People lose all their money. Some people become destitute.”

The most commonly reported fraud among older adults last year involved criminals calling homes, posing as technical support or customer service representatives.

The FBI has warned that there’s a growing trend where fraudsters impersonate technology, banking and government officials in order to convince victims that their bank accounts have been hacked.

To resolve the issue, scammers instruct victims to move their funds into a new account — one that’s actually controlled by the swindlers.

In some cases, criminals have had people drain their bank accounts under the guise that they need to either liquidate their assets into cash or buy gold or other precious metals to protect their funds.

Then, the fraudsters brazenly send couriers to the victim’s home to collect the cash or gold.

Federal investigators saw an uptick in these crippling crimes between May and December.

In other cases, “the fraud schemes are asking victims to send money via a wire transfer, or a cryptocurrency transfer,” Barnacle said.

“When the victim is reluctant to do that, they’re given an alternative. And so the bad guy will use courier services.”

The FBI also noted that the financial loss suffered by Baby Boomers is likely an undercount.

Only about half of the more than 880,000 overall complaints reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center last year included information on the age of the victim.

Earlier this month, an 81-year-old man was the target of a telephone scam — which led to the death of an innocent Uber driver who was sent as a courier to his West Virginia home.

William Brock received a call claiming his incarcerated relative threatened him and his family and demanded money.

The Uber driver had also been contacted by the same person or an accomplice, instructing her through the ride-share company’s app to pick up a package for delivery from Brock’s home.

When she arrived, Brock allegedly demanded that the unarmed woman identify the person who contacted her and grabbed her phone as he refused to let her leave.

After an altercation, Brock then shot the woman three times before calling 911, officials said.

Brock reportedly told the dispatcher that he shot someone who was trying to rob him.