Elderly people have always been easy victims of scams, even way before the invention of Bitcoin. They are usually more gullible than younger citizens, and they are technologically lagging behind and emotionally more isolated from the world, making them extremely vulnerable to malicious intentions. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies only gave scammers a new and untraceable way to steal funds, but the scams have not actually changed at all. Unfortunately, crypto exchanges also play a big part in these scams: negligence, careless identification processes, and the huge number of wallets make it very hard to filter out these scams.
The crypto scams targeting elderly are fake investments, romance, and tech support scams, elderly people are the main target because they're often more trusting, less tech-savvy, and socially isolated, and crypto's irreversible and untraceable nature makes it the perfect companion to these scams, leaving older people with drained life savings.
How Scammers Target And Steal From The Elderly
You might think that just because the elderly don’t tend to invest in crypto, they are perfectly safe from such scams. Reality is a bit more depressing than that, unfortunately. Here’s how scammers use crypto exchanges to steal money from elderly people:
- The scammer contacts an elderly person, promising them an investment opportunity. Usually, the offer includes massive gains over a short period of time.
- The scammer directs the victim to open an account on a legitimate crypto exchange. They get his account verified by uploading his ID card and a selfie. They make him believe that everything is in his control.
- The scammer then instructs the victim to deposit money via bank wire to the exchange and buy Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency).
- Next, the scammer instructs the victim to move the purchased Bitcoin into another wallet that the scammer controls. The excuse? This allows the scammer to "manage" the victim's "investment".
- As soon as the Bitcoin has left the victim's wallet, it will never return; the money is gone, and the scammer with it. As it often happens, these transactions are untraceable, and the victim realized the scam long after there was any chance of recovering any of his assets.
Slightly more intricate scams are pig butchering scams: these keep stealing funds from a victim over a long stretch of time, convincing them that their investment keeps bringing in massive returns, and all they need to do is deposit a bit more money to access their gains.
Almost Scammed: A PlasBit Use Case
We at PlasBit deeply care about safe and secure trading. As a crypto exchange, our goal is to protect our users like no other exchange does, so it’s only natural that every now and then, we hear stories of crypto scams targeting elderly from our users. The following is one such story from a user we’ll call George for privacy reasons.
George opened a PlasBit account, completed the KYC process, and made a bank wire to our bank account in order to buy crypto with it. This naturally raised a red flag with our compliance team, as it's very unusual for older individuals to create a crypto exchange account on their own. This is because they simply don't have the technological knowledge required to be even interested in crypto (most of them, at least).
Our compliance team forwarded George's details to our Finance department for further checks. They temporarily froze the account to prevent George from losing his money and scheduled a video call with him to double-check his identity.
In the meeting, a representative from the Finance department asked George to show his passport or ID to the camera, and asked him questions about his intentions with the account, as well as general questions about crypto.
George posing with his ID during his call with the PlasBit Finance Department
Our team also asked him to share his screen and show that he has complete control over his account and dashboard.
This was necessary to figure out if he knows what he is doing and has knowledge of crypto, or if a third person is manipulating him. George was constantly reminded that once he exchanges his regular money for crypto and sends it to another wallet, the money is gone, and there’s no way for him (or us) to retrieve or reverse that transaction.
Unfortunately, George failed to provide logical answers and then asked his "cousin" (the scammer) to join the video call to "help" him. The scammer refused to turn on his camera, displaying only a "BitGo" logo instead. When our Finance department confronted him about this and his attempt to scam George, he began mumbling. He was clearly caught off guard.
After the meeting was over, our Finance department froze George's account, contacted law enforcement, and prepared a document that released all responsibility from the crypto exchange (in our case, PlasBit).
A waiver about PlasBit releasing all responsibilities
After George signed the documents and took a picture of himself with them, we explained to him that he had fallen for a scam and that we had saved him €63,000, a huge amount that could have changed his life if stolen. And that’s no exaggeration: George shared that his wife needed the money for surgery, and he was contemplating suicide had he lost his fortune. Once he understood we saved his money, he thanked us and praised our integrity.
George posing with the waiver
The Finance department returned the money to the original bank account from which it came and deleted George's account from our exchange, explaining everything clearly to him throughout the whole process.
It's important to note that if our Finance department is convinced the user is genuinely interested in buying crypto and understands all the implications, they ask the user to sign documents declaring that they have sole responsibility for their transactions. After that, the account is unfrozen, and the user can use their funds as they please.
Why And How Do Scams Succeed?
Not every exchange can be this thorough with every single user. Most crypto scams targeting elderly, like the one targeting George, are successful because big exchanges are being used. These platforms don't have the resources to track each deposit and exchange. As scary as it may sound, they have no way of knowing if the victim is acting of his own free will or being manipulated into opening the account.
Unfortunately, most exchanges turn a blind eye to these kinds of scams because there aren’t enough conscious humans to recognize suspicious activity in real time. In many cases where elderly people are involved with these scams, they are being manipulated to open an account by the scammers, and we at PlasBit, as an exchange, feel obligated to go above and beyond to save people's money, especially elderly people, unlike other crypto exchanges that just allow the scam to happen.
Scammers usually get away with funds well before the victim would notice anything
The crypto sector is still relatively new and undeveloped. Our experts at PlasBit believe that new policies are needed regarding elderly individuals registering on crypto exchanges. These types of incidents happen frequently, and they will continue to happen until exchanges address the issue and implement special security measures to prevent such scams.
Elderly Crypto Scams Statistics
To say that crypto scams targeting senior citizens are frequent is an understatement. These are the elderly crypto scams statistics: In the U.S., there are over 16,000 cryptocurrency fraud complaints for people over 60 in 2023, with reports of over $1.3 billion in loss, meaning each person lost over $80,000 on average.
To put that number in context, that’s exactly the median household income in 2023 according to the US Census Bureau. That doesn’t sound very bad, right? Well, the median savings account for Americans is $8,000, and 27% of Americans have no savings whatsoever. Losing over $80,000 on average is a big deal - it often means life savings that senior citizens have been piling up for decades. Here are a few more data points about crypto scams targeting elderly:
- In the UK, romance scams are increasingly common: British, mostly male victims are reportedly losing over £100 million annually.
- Following a major crackdown in Nigeria, nearly 800 people were arrested in crypto-romance scams affecting American, Canadian, and European victims.
- Exploiting emotional vulnerabilities, romance scams are big in Canada as well, with over $58 million lost to thieves in 2024.
- The situation down under isn’t better: nearly $382 million was lost to investment scams, out of which at least half was crypto-related.
- Germany is coordinating a counterattack: authorities have shut down 47 crypto exchanges lacking proper KYC.
- In 2024 alone, Japanese authorities reported that around $42.5 million was lost to crypto scams. Additionally, romance scams were responsible for a loss of $25 million.
The Most Common Crypto Scams Targeting The Elderly
As we’ve already hinted at, there are multiple types of crypto scams that are typically targeting the elderly. We’ve collected the most common ones and how scammers deploy these tactics.
Fake investment. These are fairly common in the general population as well, but can take many shapes and forms, like annuities, real estate, investment seminars, and, of course, fake crypto investments. Just like in George’s case earlier, scammers take advantage of the fact that the elderly don’t really know how crypto works. As usual, safe investments and huge gains are promised, and once the unsuspecting victim makes the investment, the scammer gets away with the money.
Tech support. Everyone has at least once received a phone call from an unknown or foreign number, claiming that there has been some kind of issue with their laptop or other electronic device. While we just laugh off these scammy calls, elderly people often treat these calls super seriously. To them, technology is a tough maze to navigate, and they fear the day when they need to fix something by themselves. So, posing as a confident tech support person will open too many doors. Just before they could notice, the scammer could easily take over their device, view their credentials, and access any private account they want, including their crypto wallet credentials.
Impersonation fraud. When someone poses as any form of authority, the elderly are especially gullible. It’s the government calling, and they absolutely need your bank account credentials! Oh, now it’s the IRS inquiring about your recent crypto investments, and you need to pay a few thousand bucks in taxes. Appeal to authority is a real thing, and we all tend to fall for it - but the elderly are even more prone to it, as a recent study shows.
Romance scam. Probably the most despicable of all, romance scams take advantage of loneliness and an overall lack of emotional depth, both of which are typical among the elderly. It often starts with a match on a dating site: once the conversation gets deeper and more intimate, the victim is manipulated into trusting the scammer, who poses as an amicable person. After thousands of messages and only a few days, the victim is practically ready and willing to do anything for the scammer, even wiring money or cryptocurrency to them.
Of course, not all scams are directly about stealing crypto: as we’ve stated earlier, the elderly do not often invest in crypto willingly. But scammers might steal their funds held in fiat currency and then use a variety of crypto wallets and currencies to vanish without a trace.
Avoiding Crypto Scams As Senior Citizens
As it usually happens in the world of crypto, education is key to avoiding crypto scams targeting elderly. If you have a grandparent who struggles to understand technology, or you are a grandparent yourself who just wants to understand how you can protect your assets against potential scammers, this list is a must.
As a relative
- Don’t expect cooperation right away. You might understand the seriousness of the situation, but your elderly relative can get defensive. They might think that you’re educating them because they are too slow on the uptake or can’t take care of themselves anymore. Be gentle, patient, and understanding.
- Be clear about your concerns. Speak your mind honestly: crypto can be a significant investment, but only when they do their research. Tell them that often these investments fail, and a lot of times people can get scammed because of a lack of background knowledge.
- Share the basics of crypto frauds. Low risk, huge and immediate gains, no transparency: these all spell scam, but your elderly relative might not be aware of this.
- Treat them as adults. No one likes it when they talk down to them. Instead of lecturing, share your resources, and let them do their own research and arrive at the same conclusions by themselves.
- Express your care. Your main goal is to reassure your relative that you care about them and their savings, and that your main intention is to make sure they don’t lose their fortune due to rash investments.
As a senior citizen
- Don’t share private information easily. Never share these data over the phone, and before you send any valuables, be it tangible stuff like jewelry or digital assets like crypto, confirm the recipient's identity.
- Avoid unknown senders. Got an email from an unknown contact? Received a text message with a link but you don’t know the number? Our advice is to avoid unsolicited messages altogether.
- Talk to a family member. Before giving out personal information or money to anyone, let a relative or a friend know.
- Accept help only from real professionals. Before wiring your life savings following a fishy tech support call, vet the caller and check if their business is legit.
- Avoid romance scams. This one can be hard, but any love interest that asks for money or personal, private details within a few days is likely a scammer.
- Research the scammer. If you’re uncertain about the identity of someone asking for private stuff about you, do a quick search: sometimes scammers are known and named across the internet, so with some luck, you might uncover their act before it's too late.
- Avoid pop-ups. Sometimes, we end up on dodgy pages with shiny pop-ups calling for great investment opportunities. In fact, lucrative deals are never advertized like this.
- Keep your devices up-to-date. Always download the latest OS version; make sure your anti-virus software is up and running; check your adblockers and pop-up blockers so that they are all functional.
Bitcoin Scams Targeting Seniors
The elderly have always been subject to scams, and even though they don’t know too much about crypto, they can fall victim to such scams. The Bitcoin scams targeting seniors are fake investments that promise unrealistic returns to impersonating tech support representatives from well-known companies such as Google, Microsoft etc., and even faking romantic relationships to manipulate victims into sending them money, and elderly people are easy targets because they’re often socially isolated and have a lot of savings from over the years. Because Bitcoin transactions are irreversible and hard to trace, it's considered a perfect tool for these types of scams, and scammers instruct victims to transfer the money through Bitcoin ATMs because of their accessibility and ease of use.
As it often happens, scammers can be victims as well: cyber slavery is a relatively new term marking a sinister practice. Indeed, some senior citizens are scammed by people who are themselves scammed, but instead of losing their savings, they are usually coerced to commit cyber crimes like the ones detailed above.
Conclusion: Protect Your Elderly Relatives
The best thing you can do to avoid crypto scams targeting elderly is to prepare your defenses. Sadly, not all crypto exchanges can be completely trusted in this matter. Because of this, we highly advise that, as a senior citizen, you never share your private information or credentials with unknown parties, and if in doubt, you always have a relative to talk to. As a relative, we recommend that you share the very basics of how your elderly relative can defend against scams and be there for them whenever they take a few uncertain steps on the road to being scammed.
