NEW YORK–Who falls for financial scams most often: Young adults or seniors? The answer will surprise many, as it turns out young adults do a poor job of seeing through fraud that involves bad checks, fake job offers and more.
“If you’re a digital native and consider yourself immune to all scams, the thieves have you right where they want you,” noted the New York Times.
The Times pointed to years of Better Business Bureau’s survey research that shows younger adults lose money to swindlers much more often than the older people thought of as the stereotypical victims. Moreover, the report said Federal Trade Commission reports reveal similar findings with 44% of people ages 20 to 29 losing money to fraud, more than double the 20% of people ages 70 to 79.
“The Better Business Bureau’s latest report revealed a new twist: When criminals redoubled their efforts as homebound people spent more time online last year, they succeeded in bringing the median loss per scam for adults ages 18 to 24 to the same level — $150 — it was for the much more flush 65-plus crowd,” the Times said in compiling the analysis.
When it comes to targeting young adults, the fraud activities vary widely, from the online shopping that these victims may do nearly every day to “their once-in-a-blue-moon handling of paper checks,” the Times reported.
Illegal schemes also target the student debt payments they must make and the jobs they seek to afford them.
The Scams
The scams targeting younger adults include:
- False promises of a rare or surprisingly cheap products that are especially effective among consumers accustomed to frequently buying online. Online purchase scams accounted for 64% of the reports of lost money to the Better Business Bureau last year, up from just 13% in 2015. And according to the bureau’s data, 83 percent of young adults who were exposed to such scams fell for them, more than any other age group.
- Specifically, young adults often fall for pet and pet supply scams, with the median dollar loss of such scams $660. Many also fall for scams involving sites impersonating Amazon.
- And to “thumb their nose” at consumers and authorities, the Times noted very often scammers actually pose as the Better Business Bureau itself by pretending to be the organization when initiating Amazon scams.
- Employment Scams: Grifters have taken to offering bogus jobs that are particularly attractive to young adults, the Times noted, with particular attention to fake offerings for foot-in-the-door, exposure-to-creative-industries gigs like assistants and receptionists, which are common ploys for people with bad intentions. “The same goes for postings for warehouse and shipping work, an area that boomed during the pandemic and offers jobs for which many people are qualified,” the Times said, adding that of survey respondents who encountered employment scams, 32% said theirs had originated on the job listing sit
- Fake-Check Scams. “These often involve a very real piece of paper, which appears to be drawing on a business or personal bank account or rendered as a money order or a cashier’s check. It looks so authentic that the recipient doesn’t catch on and the bank doesn’t immediately reject it,” the report stated. “Then comes the con, which is a follow-up message asking for some of the money back: ‘Sorry, this is an accidental overpayment,’ or ‘Please use some of the money to perform mystery shopping of online money transfer services.’”
People in their 20s are more than twice as likely as older adults to fall prey to this sort of thing, according to the Federal Trade Commission, because many haven’t used checks much.
- Student Loan Scams. “This is already a problem, but it could get a lot worse very soon,” noted the Times report. “Tens of millions of borrowers have their federal student loan payments on pause right now, thanks to governmental efforts to keep them out of financial trouble during the pandemic. But as soon as Oct. 1, a switch will flip and most of those people will need to start the repayment process.
“You can expect a flood of thieves offering ‘free extended forbearance’ or ‘Biden forgiveness plans’ that do not exist. Then they’d try to redirect victims’ payments or use their personal information for identity theft. Or both.”