Older people are targeted by con artists simply because they often have more money – not necessarily because they are frail and helpless.
An overwhelming number of defrauded people are older than 50 - but the profile of the typical target is not who you would expect, say the founders of the new interdisciplinary Research Center on the Prevention of Financial Fraud. Think of "elder fraud," and the usual images that come to mind are a door-to-door traveling salesman preying on a forgetful codger with thick bifocals. Or acres of Florida swampland sold to a lonely old widow with a walker. Not so, said Doug Shadel, a leading expert on fraud schemes and the elderly. Think of a financially successful 60-something who is promised a 50 percent return on his investment in a new Hollywood film. He's even been promised that he'll get a chance to meet the star. Shadel is part of the new interdisciplinary Research Center on the Prevention of Financial Fraud , launched recently by Stanford University's Center on Longevity and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
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