Sylvia Dodge, a retired resident of Springfield, answered the phone.
“This is your favorite grandson,” said the caller.
“Jonathan?” Dodge asked.
“Jonathan” told Dodge that he was in jail in Montreal, arrested on a drunk-driving charge. He asked her not to tell his parents, then handed the phone to his lawyer. Jonathan would need to pay for bail, court fees and accident damage, the lawyer said; Dodge should wire three payments of $1,200 right away to get Jonathan off the hook.
“They had an elaborate story like you wouldn’t believe,” Dodge recalled.
Dodge smelled a rat, and called her grandson — who was playing golf, and not in jail.
Dodge didn’t get swindled. But 7.3 million older Americans have been victimized by such scams, according to a new survey. One out of every five Americans over 65 have fallen prey to a financial scam, said the study by nonprofit Investor group Protection Trust.
Senior scams are a growing problem in the Washington area. Every day, two or three cases like Dodge’s — scams in which elderly people are asked to wire money overseas — come to the attention of investigator Tom Polhemus of the Fairfax County Police.
“It’s absolutely nothing to see elderly people lose $50,000 or $60,000 on these scams,” he said.
From phone calls like Dodge’s, to home repair fraud, fake lotteries or bad investments, the elderly are more vulnerable to the wiles of con artists and dishonest brokers, law enforcement officials said. And much financial fraud goes unreported because seniors are embarrassed to admit they were fooled.
“Our growing elderly population is the last of what we term ‘the trusting generation.’ They grew up in an era where you didn’t lock your doors,” said Loudoun County Deputy Dale Spurlock, who teaches classes to senior citizens on how to avoid fraud. “They want to believe these people are being truthful.”
In D.C., swindlers are making the most of newly passed health care laws to persuade seniors to buy needless insurance extras. Cases involving senior insurance fraud have increased 40 percent over the past year, said Steve Perry, associate commissioner for the enforcement and investigations bureau of the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking.
“In the last two years we’ve seen a significant increase in our seniors being targeted,” Perry said.
In another scam popular in the D.C. area, tricksters advertise free lunch and a financial seminar but end up fleecing senior citizens of thousands of dollars.
“In some cases we’ve heard people are convinced to mortgage their homes to get cash to make investments,” said Theodore Miles, an official in the D.C. Department of Insurance Securities and Banking.
