The cryptocurrency market is an ever-growing world of investment opportunities, giving users who want to delve into the crypto world many different ways to enter. Yet, just as the sea is fraught with dangers under its waters, the digital ocean of the crypto world has threats lurking around. This holds especially true when we talk about elderly investors, as they are more vulnerable to the different scams created by digital thieves. This begs the question: Which is the most common senior citizen crypto scam? Pig Butchering and romance scams that exploit their loneliness, phishing through Emails and SMS messages, Airdrop scams that exploit their lack of technological knowledge and, of course, grandparent scams are the most common
In this opportunity, PlasBit wants to give you a comprehensive insight into the signs we must look out for to protect our elderly loved ones from crypto scammers.
The Elderly: A Prime Target
While scammers don’t discriminate regarding potential victims, elderly citizens are one of the most vulnerable demographics for crypto scammers. To better understand scams and the means of protecting our elderly, let’s take a quick look at why older citizens are more vulnerable to crypto scams.
Knowledge
It’s not a secret that our capability to adapt to changes diminishes as time goes on. This holds especially true in our modern world, as technology advances daily and adaptation becomes more difficult. For older people, this translates into less familiarity with the tools and technology required to safely invest in the crypto market. Crypto trading platforms, and cryptocurrency in general, require technical knowledge to handle effectively and recognize when you risk losing your crypto. Identifying crypto scam sites and links can be extremely difficult for older people, and it doesn’t help that these tactics become more sophisticated as time passes.
Solitude
Although sad, it has become increasingly common for older people to get isolated from their loved ones. There are several reasons for this isolation, but the bottom line is that it makes them more vulnerable to crypto scammers. Establishing a connection with the victim is one of the main tools for crypto scammers to entice potential prey, and an older citizen starved for love and attention is the perfect target for this kind of weapon. As we will see further down this article, one of the ways a senior citizen crypto scam can be identified is when caregivers start to trade crypto in large amounts, using their influence over the older victim to access their accounts and assets.
Savings
Older citizens usually have some form of savings or funds from different sources, such as retirement funds or investments. This makes them attractive victims for scammers, as they know they can make a huge profit if they keep the scam going for a while. As we will see further along the article, victims have lost thousands of dollars in crypto assets to crypto scammers on crypto Ponzi schemes, and more, and older citizens having access to more funds than other demographics makes them juicy prey.
Cognitive Decline
While adaptability is lost as time passes, it is not the only skill that age affects. Our capability to make sound, logical decisions, analyze, and reason effectively goes down as we grow older. Scammers focus on this mental vulnerability by employing pressure tactics to convince elderly victims to give them cryptocurrency. A prime example of a crypto scam that targets two weak spots of elderly victims is crypto romance scams: the vulnerability of feeling isolated and the incapability of reasoning that we are being scammed.
Red Flags: What to Watch Out For
While there are many senior citizen crypto scam red flags, let’s look at some of the most common signs that our older loved one is the target of a crypto scam.
A Sudden Crypto Account
One of the most prominent telltale signs that an older citizen might be the victim of a crypto scam is if they suddenly open an account in a crypto exchange platform, especially if they didn’t show any interest in the crypto market before. As we’ve mentioned, crypto trading requires technical knowledge of both technology and the crypto market in general, so seeing a senior citizen open an account in a crypto exchange platform out of the blue with no prior knowledge of or interest in the topic is a huge red flag.
Also, scammers convince their elderly victims to buy crypto using their credit or debit cards or to deposit cash in a Bitcoin ATM, again big red flags, as this is really uncommon.
Government Instructions
One of the preferred pressure tactics scammers use is tricking elderly citizens into paying for debt or making payments in crypto by posing as legitimate officials. We’ve mentioned before that as we grow older, our reasoning capacity lowers, and it’s easier for older citizens to fall for pressure tactics as they can’t see the discrepancies in the information. If an older loved one tells you they received instructions from an agency or government to make a crypto payment, they are likely being scammed.
Control Requests
As mentioned before, older citizens tend to be less tech-savvy, so they might fall prey to people who offer their support. Scammers offer tech support and request control of the computer, then steal their assets or personal information. If you see that your elderly loved one receives a control request from a stranger or informs you of it, be really careful, as they might be the target of a scam.
Elder Scams: Most Common Ones
As mentioned before, there are several reasons why the elderly are more vulnerable and targeted by scammers. We’ve discussed the red flags of elder fraud, but now it’s time to learn the schemes and scams to which elder victims may fall prey.
Fake Airdrops
This scam preys on the elderly's lack of knowledge of the crypto world and social media. Airdrops are free cryptocurrency offers that are sometimes provided to promote crypto. Scammers offer “gifts” of free cryptocurrency on social media accounts. Once the victim has shown interest in their offer, they ask for money, crypto tokens, or personal information from the victim before they can claim their gift.
Crypto Grandparent Scams
One of the most insidious and heinous scams on the list, this scheme involves scammers preying on the love of the elderly for their families. The scammer passes themselves as a grandchild or close relative and asks for money to invest in the crypto market. The scammers say they are in dire need of cash due to financial troubles or even a medical emergency. Sadly, most grandparents are blinded by their love for their family members and are easily pressured into sending the money.
Phishing
In this kind of scam, scammers pose as agents from real, legitimate entities, such as banks or crypto trading platforms. The focus is convincing the victims to give up their private information willingly, usually through email or text messages supposedly coming from the entity requesting personal details and including a link to a fake website where the victim can enter their information.
Fake Investment Platforms
Another scam targets elderly victims' lack of technological knowledge. In this scam, scammers create a fake investment platform offering “legit” crypto trading services. Scammers promise high profits and the use of state-of-the-art tools to bait their unsuspecting victims into their claws. Once the money has been deposited, the scammers either disappear with the money or continue to encourage further investment, attempting to squeeze until the last drop of money from their victims. Sometimes, the scam is so well constructed that it’s extremely difficult to realize it’s fake until it’s too late. The case of the SpireBit scam is a prime example.
Romance Scams
Another scam that targets the elderly victim's emotions and isolation, romance scams are sadly one of the most common ones for senior citizens to fall prey to. The process starts with the scammer sending a message to their potential victim through social media or dating apps, showing interest in getting to know them. Using all the emotional tools at their disposal, the scammer wins their victim’s trust little by little. Promises of love and friendship are made to put the final nails in the coffin, and once the victim has been wholly enticed, the scammers ask for money or crypto to finance a visit or to solve an urgent matter.
The worst part of this kind of scams is that since their victims don’t realize they are being scammed, it can go on for quite a long time, slowly but steadily sucking their victim's finances dry. The most skilled scammers will isolate their victims even more from family and friends to create emotional dependence and make it even easier to continue the scam.
Pig Butchering
This scam mixes romance and attachment with financial investment to create a deadly combo. As in the previous scam, it begins with a quick message through social media or dating apps. Again, trust is built slowly and steadily. Once the relationship, or in this case, the emotional dependence, is deep enough, the scammers give their victims an offer of crypto investment. Even if the victim says no initially, they are ultimately convinced or pressured into investing in the supposed crypto offer, thus fattening the pig. Once the victim says they have no money left, the scammer disappears from their life, the pig being butchered.
Elder Financial Exploitation
EFE (Elder Financial Exploitation) is not a new problem in the modern world; it has existed for a long time. Older citizens are usually targeted, as mentioned before, for several reasons: their savings, their trusting and polite nature, and more. It also doesn’t help that many elder scam victims don’t usually report their cases due to shame, fear of becoming a burden for their families, or having their financial liberty restricted.
In the case of EFE related to cryptocurrency, pig butchering scams are cybercriminals' main weapon. According to the FBI, in 2021, elder victims of crypto pig butchering scams lost around $120 million, and the number is currently on the rise.
Phishing and imposter scams are also reasonably common. In 2022, the United States Department of Justice disrupted a crypto government scam. The victim was an elderly man in North Carolina, and the scammers pressured the man by telling him that his identity was stolen and used by traffickers in money laundering. They told him he needed to transfer his savings, around 575,000$, into cryptocurrency so the government could freeze them and secure the money for him. The crypto was purchased at Coinbase and then transferred to the fraudster's account.
Bitcoin ATM frauds are also on the rise. They follow the same procedure as in crypto pig butchering scams or romance scams, but instead of asking for a direct money transfer to invest in crypto, the scammer leads the victim to deposit their money in a Bitcoin ATM; the money is then transferred to the scammer's wallet.
A Tale of Tragedy: Dennis Jones
A loving father who fell prey to the dark schemes of a crypto scammer, 82 years Dennis Jones, decided to take his own life after falling victim to the infamous pig butchering scam carried out by the woman who earned his trust on Facebook, so-called Jessie. As mentioned, this scam involves grooming their victims for months before convincing them to invest in fake crypto websites.
Jones's hobbies included running and photography. After retiring, he spent most of his time volunteering to work with refugees and participating in online political debates. All of his family loved the man, but in the months leading up to his suicide, he had been deceived into distancing himself from his family and friends. A woman calling herself Jessie on Facebook struck up a friendship with Dennis, a relationship that would prove fatal.
After months of online talking through social media, a close, emotional relationship was built between the two. After enough grooming, Jessie gave Dennis an offer of crypto investment. Even though they had never met in person, Dennis completely trusted Jessie and spent all of his money on the supposed crypto offer she was giving him. More and more money was spent until all of his savings were gone. Even then, the demands for more money continued until, one day, both Jessie and the money disappeared.
After finding out, his children decided to meet up with their father to help him recover after being scammed. The idea was that Dennis would move in with his daughter Adrianne and her family while he recovered financially. They wanted their father to know that he was not alone and that everything would be handled. Yet, nobody was prepared for what happened when the meeting day came. His son, Matt, went to his house to check on him, as all calls were being redirected to voice mail, but his father wasn’t there. Thinking his old man was only going out for one of his usual runs, Matt was met with shocking news from the police an hour after going to his father’s house. He had taken his own life.
Another Name on the List
The case of Dennis Jones is part of an increasingly extensive list of victims from a massive-scale, global criminal operation run mainly by Chinese gangs that have created a billionaire scam industry in Asia. The scale is so massive that the FBI estimates that almost $ $4 billion has been stolen in pig butchering scams in the US.
While it is an online scam, the real-life consequences can be devastating, as we’ve seen. Law enforcement predictions say that losses from this kind of digital scheme will continue to grow in the coming years, destroying more finances and costing more lives. With criminals entirely out of reach, there is little to be done about bringing them to justice.
Carina, who decided to keep her last name private, was also a victim of a pig butchering scam. Her scammer, Evan, met her through Bumble, a dating app. Evan flaunted his wealth and good looks and asked Carina to continue the conversation on WhatsApp. The relationship advanced, and Evan started calling Carina “honey,” again appealing to her emotional side to create pressure and connection. He love-bombed her and talked about a future together, even though they had never met. By the end of the scam, Carina had lost over 150,000$.
Victims of Victims
One of the saddest things about this situation is that victimizers are often also victims of the gangs that run the scam rings. Investigation results show that many of these criminal gangs have their own set of victims, whom they force into being the scammers in the equation. Gathered through human trafficking activities, the to-be scammers are lured with promises of high-paying jobs and then trafficked into Cambodia, Laos, and other countries. Once there, they are trained, tortured, and made into professional scammers for the gangs, a sad reality on both sides of the screen.
According to officers and officials fighting the pig butchering scam, the destruction that this kind of scam causes in the lives of their victims is incomparable. Apart from that, part of the money stolen from victims is used to fund the expansion of these criminal rings, creating bigger scam compounds and finding more victims to force into scamming others.
A Painful Puzzle
After Dennis’s suicide, his children started to piece together the puzzle of what had happened to their father by going through his Facebook messages. It was at that moment that they learned what had been going on in their father’s life and what drove him to that painful decision. Dennis confided to Jessie that he had been having thoughts of ending his life months prior to his death. His biggest regret, according to his messages, was having betrayed his family’s trust.
One of the worst parts for the family was coming to terms with the fact that their beloved father trusted a stranger more than he trusted them. He confided his deepest thoughts and feelings to the person who was deliberately destroying his life and finances. That is exactly the darkest and most insidious tool of scammers; they have found ways to isolate their victims and make them trust them more than they do their own loved ones. Dennis Jones was a good man who got deceived, was driven into financial ruin, had his heart broken, was shamed, and finally, not being able to take more pain, decided to end it all. A heartbreaking testimony to drive home the real dangers of elder crypto scams.
Plasbit: Protecting Seniors from Crypto Scams
At Plasbit, we value all our users' safety and security. We are committed to ensuring that each transaction carried out on our platform is done willingly. We are the barrier separating you and your elderly loved ones from scammers. Suppose an elderly user is in the process of completing a KYC, and we smell the risk of a scam. In that case, our security protocols come into full effect to ensure the transaction's legitimacy. We will verify identities through phone calls and ask questions related to the intended usage of our services, ensuring that our users are free from scammers.
We advise people to be aware of their elderly loved ones' activities and urge them to share anything suspicious. If they suspect anything suspicious is going on, they can even contact us through PlasBit support. We will do our best to advise them and help them keep their loved ones safe.
Conclusion
As we have seen, the elderly are among the most vulnerable demographics to crypto scams for financial and other reasons. We must be on the lookout for the senior citizen crypto scam signs to effectively protect the lives and economic stability of our elderly loved ones. From our side, our commitment is to ensure a safe crypto environment for crypto enthusiasts, doing our part in safeguarding every transaction carried out. Remember to always talk to your older loved ones, keep an eye on their finances, and always act as soon as you think something is wrong. To avoid more cases like Dennis Jones, a watchful eye, swift action, and communication are key.
