The Boston Police Division is issuing warnings about quite a few scams focusing on older residents and providing some recommendation on keep away from changing into a sufferer.
Based on police, scammers are focusing on older Bay Staters with a variety of schemes geared toward parting them with their financial savings, from old school dwelling enchancment fraud to newer scams centered round cryptocurrency.
Thousands and thousands in crypto losses
The rise of digital foreign money has coincided with tens of millions in monetary loss for Boston residents, in keeping with the BPD, and in 2024 alone metropolis residents misplaced over $9 million to cryptocurrency scammers. The division warns that “losses could rise even higher in 2025 as scams become more sophisticated and widespread.”
Seniors are suggested to be careful for funding scams and any makes an attempt to power them to purchase cryptocurrency at a Bitcoin ATM or related kiosk.
Within the first case, older adults could also be contacted by way of social media or a courting app and supplied a supposedly low-risk, high-reward funding alternative.
Within the different, seniors are contacted on the cellphone with a pretend funding alternative, and could be pressured into staying on the road with scammers as they’re instructed in purchase into it with cryptocurrency at a cellular kiosk and on ship it to the scammer’s digital pockets.
Police warn seniors to do their analysis earlier than investing in any digital foreign money, preserve their digital pockets keys personal — particularly from newfound on-line love pursuits, and to be skeptical of social media advertisements and unsolicited funding gives.
Faux contractors
Police are additionally reporting that residents have misplaced 1000’s after falling sufferer to scams supplied by “international travelers” who fake to promote development companies however by no means do jobs.
Police say that the old-school rip-off often begins with a suggestion to restore a small residential downside earlier than escalating the mission into large-scale and costly emergency repairs.
Scammers typically go door-to-door and hand out generic flyers, police say, they usually typically supply to finish work utilizing leftover supplies from one other just-finished job. The scammers, police say, use high-pressure gross sales ways to persuade older adults to purchase their companies, after which “become intimidating after starting work.”
Residents can defend themselves by not participating with contractors providing unasked for companies, getting a number of estimates for wanted repairs, and by checking licenses, insurance coverage, permits and references.
Imposter scams ‘on the rise’
The Federal Commerce Fee says that the variety of reported imposter scams the place senior victims lose $10,000 or extra is up 400% since 2020. An imposter rip-off is when a thief pretends to be a trusted entity — a financial institution, a relative, the police, or employer — and urges the sufferer to ship money or gold to couriers or switch cash into cryptocurrency in response to a pretend emergency.
Victims could also be instructed there may be suspicious exercise on their accounts, that they’ve been accused of against the law or {that a} relative has, or that their pc has been hacked and that entry is required.
No professional company would demand that you simply make a money cost to a courier, police say, nor would they ask you to make a cryptocurrency cost. Caller ID, they are saying, may be made to look like from a trusted quantity when it isn’t. If a name appears suspicious, they advise that it’s greatest to hold up and name the recognized quantity for the pertinent company or particular person.
Cash mules
The Boston Police say that criminals are tricking older adults into illegally transferring cash for them as cash mules, or “someone who transfers or moves money on behalf of criminals, often unknowingly.”
The illicit money concerned, police say, typically comes from drug crimes, human trafficking, or different prison exercise. Seniors are recruited as unwitting equipment by way of on-line job advertisements, social media, funding schemes, prize scams and courting apps.
“If you’re moving money for someone else, you could be acting as a money mule,” police warn.
In the event you assume you might need been caught up in such a scheme, they advise you to cease all communication with the scammers instantly, to not switch any cash on their behalf, notify your financial institution of the state of affairs, and report the matter to the FBI at www.ic3.gov.
