June 15, 2026, was designated World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. One of the ways seniors are victimized is through financial scams. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), “in 2025, [elderly] people reported losing about $16 billion to scams, compared to $12.8 billion the previous year. And because not everyone who experiences a scam
senior citizens
Privacy Tip #251 – DOJ Charge Four Men with Defrauding Thousands of Senior Citizens in Mail Schemes
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
The Department of Justice recently indicted four men—two of whom are located in Canada and two in New York—for a mass-mailing scheme that bilked thousands of senior citizens out of tens of millions of dollars.
According to the indictments, the accused Canadian fraudsters sent mail to thousands of elderly individuals whose names and addresses they…
Privacy Tip #129 – As New Medicare Cards are Issued: Beware of Scams
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
This writer has been lamenting for years about the fact that Medicare recipients’ Social Security numbers are included on the face of the card. This is an unnecessary risk posed to Medicare recipients, which are primarily senior citizens, some of our most vulnerable citizens, who are already preyed upon by scammers.
Medicare has recognized the…