Mike Wolanin | The Republic Columbus police officer Skylar Berry is the new public information officer for the Columbus Police Department. He is pictured in the studio at The Republic in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, March 27, 2024.
A recent meeting involving Family Services Inc. and other officials took an unexpected turn after they found out that just over half of the people in the room had elderly relatives who had fallen victim to a crime that the FBI says is a growing threat for seniors.
“Six of the 11 people in that room had someone in their family that had been scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Charlotte Barton Coombs, executive director of Family Service Inc., who attended the meeting.
“And when we added it all together, it was more than $1.4 million,” she added. “…I know everyone in that room was just beside themselves over this financial draining of our older adults.
The revelations of fraud during the meeting offer a glimpse at what federal and local officials say is an alarming trend seen across the county, where scammers are targeting people ages 60 and up — an array of crimes broadly defined as “elder fraud.”
Last year, the FBI received just more than 101,000 reports of elder fraud totaling $3.4 billion in losses for victims — a 11% increase compared to 2022, according to the FBI’s annual elder fraud report. By comparison, that is more than three times the amount that Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour grossed last year.
In Indiana, a total of 1,255 Hoosiers ages 60 and up reported being scammed out of a collective $37.8 million last year — roughly $103,561 per day — up from $26.4 million in 2022, according to FBI records.
As of Aug. 6, the Columbus Police Department had received 93 total reports of fraud this year, with about 36.5% involving victims who were ages 60 and up, said CPD spokesman Sgt. Skylar Berry.
Officials suspect those numbers just scratch the surface, as not all victims file reports with the authorities and only about half of the more than 880,000 fraud complaints received by the FBI in 2023 included the age of the victim.
Common schemes
Locally, one common scheme that CPD has seen involves a scammer calling an elderly individual and claiming to be a law enforcement officer, Berry said.
The scammers, who often disguise their phone numbers to make it look like the call is coming from a legitimate government line, tell the victim that they or someone in their family has a warrant, is in jail or is experiencing some sort of legal trouble — “and they have to pay in order to get out of that legal trouble,” Berry said.
“A law enforcement agent would never reach out and ask for money over the phone,” Berry said.
Another common scheme that CPD has seen is that an elderly individual is notified via email or other form of communication that a virus has been found on their computer and they need to log into an account and pay for antivirus software, Berry said.
“Usually, what happens is that they now have your account information and your login information and can defraud you that way,” he said.
Beyond that, CPD says scammers often ask for payment in cryptocurrency, prepaid debit cards or gift cards “to make it harder to track,” Berry said.
Barton Coombs said she was aware of cases in which the scammer hired an Uber to meet an elderly individual in person to receive a cash payment.
“These individuals are very smart, and they know exactly what to say, and they know how to say it to prey on the feelings and emotions of human beings,” Barton Coombs said. “And there’s no discrimination for education or intelligence levels.”
Prevention
CPD said it is focusing on prevention efforts given the difficulty of investigating these cases, as many of the offenders are located outside the department’s jurisdiction and often are out of state or in a foreign country, Berry said, adding that local victims are often advised to report the crime directly to the FBI through the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3.
The department also has a detective specializing in investigating financial crimes who often attends community meetings and goes to retirement communities to educate people on common schemes that scammers use.
Last month, CPD and the Indiana Attorney General’s Office hosted a fraud prevention seminar at Mill Race Center, with nearly 50 people attending. The seminar included information on what some fraud schemes look like to help prevent future frauds.
“(Elder fraud) is something that is impacting the entire country, and Columbus is no different,” Berry said.
In the meantime, some local officials are expressing concerns that more and more elderly residents may fall victim to fraud as the county’s population continues to age.
“I think we’re only going to see the numbers increase because what we have is a growing aging population with the Baby Boomers,” Barton Coombs said. “We’ve seen just the initial waves coming through, but I think we have a tidal wave coming through that we are not prepared to deal with.”
