The Justice Department released its 2025 Annual Report to Congress on elder fraud this month. The headline number is nearly $2 billion lost by older Americans to fraud schemes in 2024. Attorney General Pamela Bondi linked the report to a reinvigoration of enforcement ahead of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15.
If you have a parent or older family member at home, this report is worth understanding in detail. The patterns the DOJ documents are predictable. The conversations with parents that prevent the patterns from landing almost never happen until after a hit.
What the Report Actually Says
The DOJ report breaks down the top vectors. Lottery fraud, where a "winner" is told they need to pay taxes or processing fees to release their prize. Romance fraud, where a fake relationship is built over months before a financial ask. Tech support fraud, where a pop-up tells someone their computer is compromised and a "Microsoft technician" needs remote access. And grandparent scams, where a caller claims to be a grandchild in legal trouble who needs bond money wired immediately.
DOJ also called out transnational fraud rings. These are not lone bad actors. They are operations running out of multiple countries with money laundering networks, prepared scripts, and targeting lists built from leaked data.
The number that should sit with families: older Americans filed reports of nearly $2 billion in losses in 2024. The real total is higher because most victims never report. Shame, confusion, and a sense that "it is too late now" keep families silent.
Why Families Almost Never See It in Time
Eight years across construction project management and house flipping put me in rooms where the buy side of senior real estate gets organized. The same psychological levers show up across all of these scams, regardless of the specific pitch.
Pressure compresses the decision. The caller or letter writer almost always frames the opportunity as urgent. Sign today. Wire today. Send the gift cards within the hour or the IRS warrant goes through. Real financial decisions never have to happen in twenty minutes.
The framing is cooperative, not adversarial. Lottery callers congratulate. Romance scammers profess love. Tech support pop-ups offer to help. Cash buyers offer to "take the burden of the house off your shoulders." Families recognize manipulation more easily when it sounds adversarial. They miss it when it sounds friendly.
The mark is isolated from family advisors. Every successful scam ends with the victim alone, on the phone, with a paper or button in front of them. The defense is somebody else in the room asking, "What is this and who is the person on the other end?"
Three Controls That Actually Work
These are not sophisticated. They do not require an app. They require a conversation and a written rule.
Rule one. A family rule that any money decision over a threshold gets a second set of eyes before money moves. Pick a number. Five hundred dollars. A thousand. Whatever fits the family budget. Anything above the threshold, the decision pauses, and a second person reviews. No exceptions.
Rule two. Account alerts on every senior bank account, sent to both the parent and an adult child. Most banks let you set transaction alerts for any amount, any login, any password change. Turning these on takes ten minutes. The family sees withdrawals in real time, not when the statement arrives.
Rule three. A scripted refusal for any call that asks for cash, gift cards, wire transfers, or remote computer access. Written down, taped to the wall next to the phone. The script is short: "I do not make financial decisions on the phone. I will call you back if my family confirms this." Hang up. Call the relative or organization directly using a number from a known source.
What Else Helps
A few additional moves layer on top of the three controls.
Enroll the senior's property in the county property fraud alert program. Most counties run a free service that emails or texts the owner if any deed activity is filed on their property. This catches deed-theft attempts before they are notarized into final form.
Freeze credit at the three major bureaus on the senior account. A freeze prevents new accounts from being opened without explicit unfreeze action. It is reversible, free, and the single most effective control against identity-based fraud.
Designate a trusted contact on every brokerage account. FINRA's senior protection rules let firms contact a designated person if they suspect financial exploitation. This is a fifteen-minute call to the brokerage to set up. Almost nobody does it.
Have the conversation with parents about scripts before the call lands. Walk through what a grandparent scam sounds like. Walk through what a "we buy houses" letter says. The conversation is awkward exactly once. The defense it builds lasts for years.
What I Tell Families When This Has Already Happened
When a hit has already landed, the priority order is different.
File with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Same day. The intake form takes about twenty minutes. This creates the federal record that some recovery paths require.
Report to the state attorney general. Every state has a consumer protection division that takes elder fraud reports. Some states have dedicated elder fraud units.
Contact the bank or financial institution immediately. Wire transfers can sometimes be recalled within 24 hours. Gift card numbers can sometimes be frozen. Time is the only variable.
And, hardest of all, do not let shame keep the rest of the family in the dark. Most families I have seen recover do not recover all the money. They recover the relationships by getting everyone aligned on what happened, what is being done, and what changes going forward.
The Underlying Truth
The DOJ report is doing its job. Enforcement is real, and the numbers are getting reported. But the families who do not lose two billion dollars next year are not going to be saved by enforcement. They are going to be saved by a conversation that happens at a kitchen table, a written rule, and a phone alert that fires before money moves.
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is June 15. If you have not had the conversation with your parents yet, this is the month.
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Ryan Riggins is the founder of Riggins Strategic Solutions, a consumer protection company for families navigating senior transitions. He spent 8 years in construction project management and house flipping before switching sides. Two books on Amazon. Free resources at rigginsstrategicsolutions.com.
