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Fighting Back against Older Adult Fraud

Focus is on educating about growing scams

Sheila Burke,

AARP

Published March 01, 2026

Older couple worriedly looks at their mobile phone screen.

Curt Springstead remembers the day in 2014 when he went to his mailbox and found about 25 letters congratulating him on opening new bank accounts — only he wasn’t the one who did it. Someone had stolen his identity and used it to open numerous accounts.

Springstead spent the next three years battling banks for basic information every time another account appeared in his name. The 73-year-old retired IT professional and AARP New Jersey volunteer who lives in Wanaque in Passaic County counts himself lucky that he didn’t lose any of his own money, but more than a decade later, he still worries about what else might happen.

Now he channels that experience into prevention. As a member of AARP New Jersey’s Speakers Bureau, Springstead gives community presentations about identity theft and fraud, sharing his own story and that of a close relative who lost thousands of dollars to scammers.

“There’s no doubt that it gives me credibility as a presenter,” he says. “And it may keep a few people more attentive while I talk.”

The Speakers Bureau is one of several ways AARP New Jersey works to combat the growing problem of fraud crimes, especially among older adults.

Losses from fraud are rising sharply nationwide, and older adults are bearing much of the cost. Nationwide, adults age 60 and over reported fraud losses in 2024 of $4.89 billion, according to the FBI; adults ages 50 to 59 reported fraud losses of $2.5 billion in the same year. In New Jersey, the FBI reports, adults older than 60 lost $133.4 to fraud in 2024, about a 52 percent increase over the $87.5 million reported losses in 2021. The true cost is far higher, officials say, because most scams are never reported.

“This is the amount of money that is leaving our economy in a year, moving out of retirement accounts and other sorts of accounts and into drug trafficking and human trafficking and all kinds of bad stuff,” says Kathy Stokes, senior director of fraud prevention programs for AARP.

PRIORITIZING PREVENTION

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Those numbers are one reason AARP has made fraud prevention a core priority. Nationally, the organization runs a free fraud helpline (877-908-3360) and offers online tools and alerts to help people spot and avoid scams.

AARP builds on those resources with local outreach — from prevention summits to small-group presentations in libraries, churches, community centers and senior housing complexes.

In New Jersey, that work is coordinated in part by Zoila Disla, associate state director of community outreach for the northern region. She calls scams and financial exploitation “a major growing threat” to older residents. Her office leans on fraud summits, the speakers bureau and creative programs such as fraud bingo that teach people about scams in a more engaging way. AARP New Jersey is also marking Fraud Month in April with a planned fraud blitz aimed at combating scams. Go to aarp.org/events/find. Members can find details on those programs on the AARP New Jersey events page at local.aarp.org/nj and on the AARP New Jersey Facebook page at facebook.com/AARPNJ.

Volunteer leader Christine Braccino helps put those efforts into practice.

A longtime AARP New Jersey volunteer with a background in finance, accounting and risk management, she now co-leads the state office’s fraud outreach. She says awareness has grown in recent years, but scammers keep finding new ways to reach people and new tools like artificial intelligence to create and spread more sophisticated and convincing scams that are harder to detect.

Braccino worries especially about older adults who live alone and who may be targeted by scammers because they are often trusting and have more financial resources. She urges families and friends to talk openly about fraud so loved ones know it is okay to hang up, say no or double-check with someone they trust before sending money.

“Scammers rely on silence, shame and speed,” Disla says. “Our job is to slow things down, speak up and make sure people know help is available before damage is done.”

For Springstead, the payoff comes when someone tells him that a seminar helped them stop a scam in its tracks. “We’re seeing real impact of what we’re doing,” he says.

Sheila Burke is a Nashville-based freelance writer for AARP Tennessee whose articles for the AARP Bulletin and AARP States cover caregiving, fraud and scams, housing, natural disaster preparedness, advocacy, and other issues affecting older adults, and she has lived and worked in Nashville for many years.