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With Healthy Skepticism, Elderly Can Avoid Scams

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By JACOB SCHNEIDER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 29, 2008

"I brought you a little gift," said the man at Florence Miller's doorstep five years ago, and the Naples resident decided she ought to be hospitable and let him in.

But it was no ordinary social call. The man refused to leave her living room until she agreed to buy an expensive and unwanted Kraftmatic bed. Desperate and fearing for her life, Miller finally gave in after four hours of resisting the unsolicited sales pitch.

"I was scared because I didn't know what else he might do to me if I didn't say I would take the bed," said Miller, who is now 95 years old. "I could have gone into the bedroom and called the police. But then again, how do you know if he's going to follow you there?"

The salesman took away her old bed and she was left with one which she found uncomfortable and fell out of four times. Miller ultimately got lucky - she contacted the Florida attorney general's office, which reached a legal settlement on behalf of her and other victims of that scam. They got their money back, but Miller said she was still traumatized by the incident.

"It's just one of those things that out of the blue it happens right in your own home. Sometimes you wonder if you are safe," she said.

With a high population of well-heeled seniors, Florida is ground zero for fraud schemes targeting the elderly. Many schemes play on the fact that seniors often have saved money for retirement, live alone, and are easily physically intimidated. The scams run the gamut from bad products and home repair offers to complex identity theft, often taking advantage of the fact that many seniors are less computer-savvy than younger generations.

"We say it's because they're targeted, not that they're particularly vulnerable," Sally Hurme, an AARP Financial Protection project manager, said of the victimization of seniors. "They've got the money, they've got the time, they're home when the home improvement guys come to cruise the neighborhood for an older house."

Scams also tend to evolve with the news of the moment, be it a natural disaster or government action.

"The key about any scam is that the scamsters like to follow the news," Hurme said. "The poster child of 2008 is scams around the stimulus payment."

In one scam from this year, many people received calls saying that if they provided a few pieces of sensitive financial information, the Internal Revenue Service would expedite their stimulus check. Victims of that scam unwittingly gave away some of their most vital personal information.

Florida residents reported more than 50,000 cases of fraud or identity theft last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Florida ranks 13th out of all states in per-capita fraud cases and fifth in per-capita identity theft. In total, Floridians lost $60 million to fraud , an average of more than $2,000 per case. Eighteen percent of fraud victims and 10 percent of identity theft victims were older than 60 nationally.

Of the nearly 7,000 fraud complaints across all age groups in the Tampa Bay area, 9 percent were for shop-at-home/catalog sales, 7 percent for Internet fraud, 6 percent for foreign money offers, 5 percent for sweepstakes, and 5 percent for computer equipment and software.

Reluctant To Call For Help

According to some victim advocates, the reported numbers for seniors may not come close to telling the whole story.

"A lot of seniors don't report a lot of the fraud," said Sandi Copes, spokeswoman for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. "They seem embarrassed, they don't want to be taken advantage of, they don't want to seem like they can't take care of it themselves."

To get around many seniors' reticence to report their victimization, the attorney general's office launched the Seniors vs. Crime program in 1989. Through the program, senior volunteers serve as investigators, helping fraud victims recoup their losses. Last year, the program recovered more than $5 million for Florida seniors. Norman Meyers, who directs the Sun City Center office of the program, said that he finds that seniors are much more willing to confide in their peers.

"Elderly people who have been ripped off are a little embarrassed about talking to people who are younger. They don't even tell their family," Meyers said. "When someone their own age comes along who they can confide in, they tell."

He said that he most often sees seniors unwittingly fall victim to slick sales pitches promising bogus window, door, and other home repairs.

"They're smooth talkers, and unfortunately some of these people, their mind is not what it used to be and they fall for these scams," Meyers said.

"People have spent thousands and thousands of dollars and they have incomplete or almost unlivable domiciles," he added.

Sun City Center resident Rochelle Lowenthal, who this year helped a neighbor recover an $8,000 down payment for shoddy window replacements, said she has learned to never trust the sales pitch, as tempting as it may seem.

"He was very nice, good looking, nicely dressed, nice BMW car. All of the conversation about family, you fall for that," she said.

Seniors, she added, are "lonely, they meet a friendly person, and before you know it they're signing."

Hurme, of the AARP, said that the most important thing seniors can do to protect themselves is to be wary.

"Check it out, check it out, check it out," she said. "Do your homework, independently verify the Web site, the pitch, the telephone number. They may not be who they say they are."

Reporter Jacob Schneider can be reached (813) 259-7850 or jschneider@tampatrib.com.

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