Insights / Online safety
Scams across generations: younger adults report losses more often, older people lose more
A consumer technology segment on WRDW, citing the US Federal Trade Commission, says people in their twenties report losing money to fraud more often than people over 70, while older victims tend to lose larger amounts. Each age group meets different scams.
What happened
It is easy to picture the typical scam victim as an elderly person on the phone. A segment by WRDW in Augusta, Georgia, citing data from the US Federal Trade Commission, paints a more mixed picture.
According to the report, adults aged 20-29 reported losing money to fraud more often than people aged 70 and over in 2024. Older victims, however, tended to lose larger sums when they were caught.
The segment links the difference to how each group spends its time. Younger adults shop, date, bank and look for jobs online, and scammers meet them there: fake online stores, job offers that aren't real, messages pretending to be from a government agency, bank or the police, and sextortion, where someone obtains intimate photos and then threatens to share them. Older people more often meet tech-support scams, prize and sweepstakes scams, romance scams and government impersonation, often ending in a demand for gift cards.
Warning signs
- Someone you didn't expect asks for money or personal information.
- The message or caller claims to be from an official body, a bank or the police.
- A shop, job or prize looks better than it should.
- You are asked to pay in an unusual way, such as gift cards.
- The person seems to know things about you. The report notes this is not proof they are genuine.
What families can do
- Pause before paying anything that was asked for unexpectedly, whatever your age.
- Check who is really asking, using contact details you find yourself, not the ones in the message.
- Talk across generations. Grandparents and grandchildren face different scams, and each can warn the other about what they have seen.
- Talk to teenagers about sextortion calmly and early: if it happens, it is not their fault, and they should tell an adult and not pay.
- Report scams to the police or your bank, even small ones.
For younger children, the safest place online is a small one. QuietWeb is a browser that only opens the websites a parent has saved, so a fake shop or an unknown link simply doesn't load.
Each Insights note starts from a real, published report, which we always link. We write it in our own words, add no figures that are not in the report, and a person checks every note before it is published. Spotted a mistake? Write to support@quietguard.io.