Sunshine, Golf, Pickleball and… Scams?

“Offenders knew that there was this prime vulnerable target all living together right here in this small area, and they were preying upon those residents there,” she surmises.

The FSU researchers believe that fraud criminals targeting older people is likely a problem in retirement communities around the country. They’re testing that hypothesis in a joint study with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, surveying residents in California’s Contra Costa County (home to a variety of communities for older adults) and across Florida.

The goal is to determine whether, as Brancale puts it, “these older adults are living in hot spots for fraud.”

Logic suggests that they are, says Frank McKenna, chief innovation officer for Point Predictive, a San Diego-based fraud-prevention company. The international crime rings perpetrating some of today’s biggest frauds can target victims using information readily available online, he notes. Why wouldn’t they hone in on retirement communities?

“[Residents there generally have] a lot of money…and are perceived to be more easily manipulated,” says McKenna. “That’s their demographic. They would definitely target people in that area.” 

Looking beyond The Villages

One of the first retirement communities in the country sprang up in Seal Beach, California, in the 1960s as Leisure World, a gated enclave for people 55-plus south of Los Angeles that now has more than 9,500 residents. They include Nathan Steele, 73, a member of the Seal Beach city council. While discussing the scams in his community with AARP recently, he noted that he’d just lost money to a scam that very morning. A colleague had sent him an email about a political conference coming up that weekend, and asked if Steele could help the group by paying a bill related to the event. Steele sent the $490 payment through Zelle, before later learning that a scammer had hacked the colleague’s email to perpetrate this sophisticated “do-me-a-favor” scam. “We’re a vulnerable population, there’s no question about it,” Steele says. 

There doesn’t appear to be much disagreement on that point. But the FSU researchers hope to determine whether people like Steele are being targeted even more frequently than the average older person because they live in communities with a high density of residents 55 and older. This might be the case, in theory, if criminals search for potential victims by ZIP code or community type, which would be simple to do.

John McCarthy, the state’s attorney for Maryland’s Montgomery County, prosecuted six couriers for overseas criminals who impersonated federal agents and convinced seven older county residents that they were victims of identity theft or their bank accounts had been compromised. Victims were told to convert their cash to gold bars, which they were to hand over to a courier for safekeeping. He says there’s no way to know whether the perpetrators targeted the victims based on their residential areas, but three of the seven victims lived in retirement communities, including a resident of Leisure World in Silver Spring, Maryland, who had nearly $800,000 stolen in the scam.

“The older generation is polite,” McCarthy says. “They’re kind and will engage with people on the phone.” So he tries to teach them to be more wary: “Don’t answer the phone if you don’t recognize the number,” he says. “The IRS doesn’t call you on the phone; the FBI doesn’t call you on the phone. … Scammers call you on the phone.”

Tip of the Iceberg 

Older Americans reported nearly $4.9 billion stolen through fraud in 2024, with an average loss of $83,000, according to the latest annual report from the FBI. That’s a stunning 43 percent more than 2023’s reported losses. Adults 60 and older submitted more than 147,000 complaints.

These are massive numbers. And yet the actual losses are likely far higher than the official numbers indicate, because many victims don’t report their losses. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission estimated in a 2025 report to Congress that, when accounting for underreporting, fraud criminals stole as much as $195.9 billion from Americans in 2024 alone. 

The ‘locusts’ — and the sleuths

Seniors vs Crime is a unique fraud-fighting group with a strong presence in The Villages. It was started by the state attorney general’s office in 1989 and now has 31 offices across Florida, focused on educating older people about scams and assisting fraud victims. The police or FBI generally handle the criminal cases that often originate overseas and can result in victims losing their life savings, and then some — the romance scams, lottery scams, grandparent scams.

The Seniors vs Crime “sleuths,” as the volunteers are called, often handle complaints about in-person scammers who roam the region — contractors who promise to install a pool or do landscaping, then disappear with the money after doing only partial or shoddy work, or no work at all.  

These problems are prevalent in many areas of the state, says Marty Jacobson, a former police officer who’s a deputy director of Seniors vs Crime. They see an onslaught of contractor fraud in Florida’s retirement communities, as well as car sales and car repair fraud. “Never buy a car if you don’t get a paper contract,” he tells residents, explaining that some dealerships will ask customers to e-sign contracts on a tablet, then change the numbers after the fact.

Jacobson estimates that the organization has recovered about $40 million for victims across Florida over the years, working as mediators between contractors and customers

Roofing scammers are particularly notorious. “I consider them almost like locusts,” says Larry Moran, 79, a retired wealth adviser from Northern Virginia and a Seniors vs Crime volunteer in The Villages. He warns residents not to let anyone onto their roofs. The scammers offer to climb up to look for damage, then tear out a shingle, take a picture and offer repairs. 

Then there are the shady pool installation businesses; one pair of owners was recently arrested for allegedly taking nearly $200,000 in down payments from six residents in The Villages (plus one who lived outside the community) and not doing the work. Other residents were left with partially built pools, including John, a retiree who moved to the community about seven years ago with his wife (John is a pseudonym, to protect his family’s privacy). The couple lost $25,000 after hiring the company to build a $100,000 pool that was never completed. “It’s a challenge to find trustworthy contractors who do quality work,” says John. “Far too often they view us as prey.” 

“People don’t work here, so everybody outside thinks they’re millionaires," says Ed Kelly, a former special agent for the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General who moved to The Villages in 2013. He now heads the four Seniors vs Crime offices spread throughout the community. “They’re not [millionaires], but many of them have their houses paid off. They have disposable income.”

Kelly calls The Villages “a target-rich environment.”

Ed Kelly, a Villages resident, works with Seniors vs Crime to help scam victims in his community.

Mary Beth Koeth

Others agree that criminals appear to be targeting the community. Jacob Chichester, a detective with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, investigates crimes in The Villages, specializing in cryptocurrency scams (crypto investment scams and scams that request payment through crypto kiosks, as in Teresa’s case). He believes that the location of the victims is no coincidence: “[Criminals] know the geographical locations to look at and where to press the thumb.”

Another case in point: Bill Eder, 74, who owns a golf cart rental business in The Villages, received a call on a Saturday morning in December from someone named Derek Henderson from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office (he even provided his badge number and a case number), who said Eder had failed to appear for federal jury duty and owed a $7,000 fine. “I’m thinking this guy’s legit,” says Eder. “He’s got the sheriff’s office address and phone number, and he had all my information. [So] I said, I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you guys down at the sheriff’s office.

Nope, you could get arrested if you drive, Henderson told him. We will send someone to escort you. Eder drove to the sheriff’s office anyway, without telling Henderson, and quickly realized he was dealing with a scammer. He has no idea what would have happened if he’d entered a car with the supposed escort. “Probably take me to an ATM to get money out.” 

One couple in The Villages lost about $25,000 to a pool installation company that never completed the work. They later hired another company to build it.

Mary Beth Koeth

Caution and education

It’s important to note that Eder, like many other Villagers interviewed for this story — including Teresa — says he loves the lifestyle and isn’t going to be scared away by scammers. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” he insists. (A spokesperson for The Villages declined to comment on scams in the community, but its community watch organization recently held a speakers series with representatives from law enforcement and Seniors vs Crime informing residents about the latest scams and how to avoid them.)

“These retirement communities are wonderful, wonderful alternatives when people reach a certain age,” says FSU’s Blomberg. “There’s so much that’s positive.”

But Blomberg believes that, wherever older people live, they need to be educated about scams and fraud. Many of the people the researchers interviewed expressed frustration that the managers of their community weren’t taking more steps to protect them from scams. “There was no institutionalized effort to implement an ongoing educational program designed to protect residents from financial exploitation,” he says. 

Education builds skepticism, which is crucial, Blomberg adds: “In this day and age, skepticism is a must.”