The Federal Trade Commission recently unveiled an unpleasant statistic. We all know that millions of people died from COVID-19, however, it also resulted an opportunity for fraudsters to take advantage of the fear this created. This resulted in older Americans losing $600 million to scams in 2020, much of it fueled by pandemic-related schemes, according to federal officials. Losses in many top categories topped 2019, according to the FTC, with online shopping scams up 129%, business imposter fraud up 88% and romance scams +66%. Among the losses of those 60 and older, $104 million came from 26,518 complaints tied directly to COVID-19 scams (Source AARP Bulletin, November 2021 Issue, page 4).
