New federal strategy targets elder fraud as reported losses hit $8B | #datingscams #romancescams

The federal government has announced a coordinated approach to reduce fraud, abuse and neglect of older adults, along with a national fraud awareness campaign that will amplify its efforts.

The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday unveiled the launch of the Federal Elder Justice Action Plan, a government-wide strategy to improve the safety and financial security of older adults.

While the plan is federal in scope, it will likely provide access to more resources and training opportunities to help senior living staff recognize the signs of abuse and exploitation. And with an emphasis on improving coordination, it presents an opportunity for senior living providers to play a more integrated role in reporting and intervening when fraud is suspected.

The campaign unites 17 federal departments and agencies to strengthen collaboration, advance elder justice and protect older adults’ independence, financial security and dignity. The plan builds on the Elder Justice Coordinating Council’s 2014 recommendations to establish a unified federal roadmap for combating elder abuse, neglect and exploitation by introducing measurable steps to prevent harm and disrupt exploitation, hold bad actors accountable, and connect older adults to resources. 

The goals of the plan include:

• Strengthening coordination with financial institutions, payment service providers, communications providers and law enforcement. The campaign will expand the availability and awareness of tools to prevent financial exploitation, as well as reporting systems. In addition, the campaign has a goal of improving oversight of fiduciaries and federal benefits.
• Improving reporting of elder abuse and fraud through national public awareness campaigns. The campaign will expand cross-disciplinary training for early identification and response to fraud, integrate federal data systems and advance research to identify trends, risks and effective interventions.
• Increasing training for investigators, prosecutors and frontline professionals, as well as coordination across adult protective services, law enforcement and the financial sector, to create multidisciplinary teams and cross-agency coordination.

The Never EVER public awareness campaign will amplify the message that no government agency will ask someone to move money to protect it, demand unusual forms of payment, or ask for a Social Security number to determine eligibility for a government grant. 

The broader picture

In the wake of the federal government’s approach to elder fraud, a nonprofit organization focused on combating scams against older adults released a report combining federal data sets on elder fraud to provide a broader picture of the issue.

The new study from Human Cybersecurity Knowledge for Seniors, HCSK, shared that older adults reported almost $8 billion in internet-enabled fraud losses in 2025 — up 59% from 2024 and 360% from 2021. 

“Older adults are not facing one scam — they are facing a fast-changing ecosystem of impersonation, manipulation, payment pressure and AI-enabled deception,” HCSK founder and Director Yuksel Aydin said in a statement. 

The HCSK report examines state-by-state loss patterns, AI-enabled fraud, the impact of fraud beyond dollar losses, scams that target older adults, and the role of banks, platforms, law enforcement, families, caregivers, and state and federal agencies.

One of the key findings of the study is a fragmented response to elder fraud, inconsistent messaging and speed mismatch in the timeline to freeze fraudulent payments. 

Among the data sets cited in the report were the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, which shows where elder fraud is happening by providing victim counts and dollar losses by state, broken down by crime type; the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, which provides a detailed picture of how scammers make contact and how victims pay; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which reports what happens after a loss and why so little of those losses are recovered, and the the US Senate Special Committee on Aging, which publishes an annual Fraud Book. 

By combining those and other federal data sets, the study painted a broader picture of elder fraud in America:

• The problem is growing faster than any response, with annual losses reported by older adults growing 360% in five years to almost $8 billion in 2025.
• Reported numbers dramatically understate reality. With fewer than one in 20 fraud reported, the true number of elder fraud victims likely runs several times higher than reported.
• The channels of attack are shifting: Social media has overtaken phone calls as the leading contact method for elder fraud by total losses. Cryptocurrency and bank transfers have replaced gift cards as the main money-moving challenge. 
• Recovery depends on speed, and most cases don’t reach the freeze window in time: In 2025, the FBI froze about half of the money in the few hundred cases reported fast enough to act, meaning that less than half of 1% of the dollars stolen from older adults was frozen.

The report lays out recommendations to create “one front door” — or one national number to call and one website to report fraud scams — one consistent message from federal and state agencies to “think first, verify always,” and a 24-hour coordinated response standard.