Behind the Screen: Elder Financial and Technology Abuse in the Age of AI

• Pages: 76-78
• Date: 01 May 2025
• Published date: 01 May 2025
• Author: Steven Bradley

Bifocal 46 Issue 5

76

The last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in

nancial and technology-related crimes against

the elderly. As a former law enforcement in-

vestigator who spent years unraveling fraud cases, I

can attest that the evolution of these crimes is not just

alarming but also increasingly sophisticated. Today,

the integration of articial intelligence (AI) into ev-

eryday technologies has created both opportunities for

safety and new frontiers for abuse. The elderly, often

less familiar with emerging tech, are tragically among

the most vulnerable.

The Scope of the Problem

Elder nancial abuse is not a new phenomenon. How-

ever, its migration into the digital world has made it

harder to detect and easier to execute. According to

the FBI’s 2023 Elder Fraud Report, Americans over

60 lost more than $3.4 billion to scams in that year

alone—a 14% increase from 2022. The true numbers

are likely higher, as many victims never report the

crime out of embarrassment or fear.

Scammers today don’t just rely on sweet-talking or

intimidating victims over the phone. They use spoofed

caller IDs, phishing emails, fake websites, and even

deepfake videos to impersonate family members, gov-

ernment ocials, and tech support agents. AI has now

entered the scene, amplifying the scope and believabil-

ity of these attacks.

The New Face of Scams: Articial Intelligence

AI tools can be used for good—speech-to-text ser-

vices, fall detection, health monitoring—but in the

wrong hands, AI becomes a powerful weapon. Here

are some ways it is already being used to exploit the

elderly:

1. Voice Cloning: Scammers now use AI to clone

the voices of victims’ family members. In one

recent case, a grandmother received a pan-

icked call from someone who sounded exactly

like her grandson, claiming he was in jail and

needed bail money. She wired $5,000 before

conrming his whereabouts.

2. Deepfake Videos: AI-generated video con-

tent can convincingly mimic a person’s face

and speech patterns. A deepfake of a known

public gure, like a Social Security ocial or

Medicare representative, may be used to gain

trust and encourage victims to divulge personal

information.

3. AI Chatbots and Phishing: AI-generated

emails and messages are more sophisticated,

personalized, and grammatically correct, mak-

ing phishing attempts more convincing. Chat-

bots can now respond in real-time, mimicking

human support agents and luring victims into

scams.

4. Predictive Targeting: Machine learning algo-

rithms sift through leaked or sold data to iden-