by Paula Span / © 2026, KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The first call came just before Thanksgiving last year. She didn’t recognize the phone number, but she answered anyway.
“The person said he was an officer of the Department of Criminal Investigations looking into drug trafficking and money laundering,” the woman recalled. He seemed to know a lot about her.
On her phone, he showed her a convincing badge and a photo ID with his name (“Frank” something), plus an article describing the supposed investigation. The woman, a 76-year-old retiree, denied any involvement.
“You can hire a very expensive criminal defense attorney, or you can cooperate with me,” Frank told her.
Persuaded by the badge and ID, she agreed to cooperate. Otherwise, “I thought they were going to come and arrest me.”
It was all a scam.
Financial exploitation
Because victims’ sense of shame often leaves them reluctant to report such crimes, the extent of elder financial exploitation is hard to calculate. The Federal Trade Commission reported losses of $2.4 billion in 2024, largely driven by investment and romance scams and impersonations.
Americans age 60 and older lose more than $28 billion annually to financial exploitation, AARP [American Association of Retired Persons] estimated in 2023.
As those numbers rise, because the population is aging and predators are growing increasingly resourceful, banks and investment firms are becoming the first line of defense.
Stopping the scam
Frank instructed her to shift about $250,000 [from her Fidelity Investments account] into her checking account. That scheme fizzled when Fidelity could not approve the transaction without more information.
So Frank sent her to [the bank to] take $70,000 in cash. “We don’t give out that much in cash,” the teller said, quietly messaging the branch manager, who had known the woman and her husband for years.
The manager ushered the woman into her office to talk, and the scam stopped there, with a call to the local police. The woman’s assets remained intact, but the experience proved so mortifying that she has not told even her family how close she came to losing much of her life savings.
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