Chances are high that your family or relatives have already received calls where they were threatened in some way to hand over money. Scammers across the U.S target aging people to defraud them of billions of dollars. Records show that San Francisco Bay Area received a record of 878 million last year alone.

Many of these robocalls are requested by the recipients by making them legal. These are utility payment alerts, bank calls, or pharmacy calls that remind to pick up medicines. More than half of them are telemarketing and scams. Statewide, Californians receive about 5–6 billion robocalls annually.

Scammers are getting sophisticated.

Year after year, most of these scammers become smarter as they adjust to technological advances. What they normally do scamming the elderly is trying to trick them into believing that their grandchildren are in danger, kidnapped or in jail. Immediate action is required to save their loved ones from the trouble by wire transferring money or even getting some sort of gift card. Scammers that are good at what they do use technology to make it look more realistic, for example, they play voice recordings of supposedly kidnapped loved ones.

Top scams targeting the elderly in the Bay Area use:

IRS impersonation scam

Can you hear me scam

Unsolicited calls

Elder Financial abuse

Romance call

Government grant scam

Identity theft

Over the 15-month period, scammers were able to defraud $42 million from their victims.

iTunes Gift Card scam is very common.

When you think of your kids are being held in jail, getting an iTunes gift card won’t help them get out from there. But con artists press their points by making elderly believe that it’s the fastest way to get the child out of harm. Elderly people often fall prey to this scam as they think it might be a new technology advancement thing and this is how I’m supposed to do this.

What to do to protect yourself, your parents or grandparents

Never give away financial account information, social security number or medicare information over the phone. Generally, avoid phone calls that you don’t recognize Change your voicemail information in order not to reveal your name or other sensitive information Don’t call back to phone calls that claim they are IRS, Social Security Administration, local police officer or your bank. Double-check the number online to see if it’s legitimate Don’t confirm any personal information and avoid saying ‘yes’ to any question as calls can be recorded and used to purchase things later after the call.

Please share this article with your friends and family and warn them about the scams.