Lantern Lifestyle Shares the Most Prevalent Senior Scams and How to Prevent Them

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lifestyle

Summary

Lantern Lifestyle recently discussed the most common scams to increase awareness about their nature and prevention. The discussion was held in the Lounge at the Lantern of Saybrook and was led by Jean, founder and CEO of the Lantern group.

Press Release

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Lantern Lifestyle recently discussed the most common scams to increase awareness about their nature and prevention. The discussion was held in the Lounge at the Lantern of Saybrook and was led by Jean, founder and CEO of the Lantern group. These scams vary a lot, and they are as follows:

People posing as Medicare representatives
Selling seniors counterfeit prescriptions
Funeral scams
Fraudulent anti-aging products
Telemarketing phone scams
Soliciting money for charities
Internet fraud
Investment schemes
Reverse mortgage and property tax scams
Sweepstakes and lottery scams
COVID-related scams
Fake warrants
Facebook giveaways and free coupons
Scams conducted by the seniors’ own loved ones and relatives
The notorious Grandparent Scam

Jean proceeded to explain about fraudulent anti-aging products. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” he states matter-of-factly. Afterward, he also identified telemarketing phone scams as another tricky issue for the sheer difficulty to trace them. “They sell off your name, your phone number, or any important contact information, causing you to be scammed again and again.”

The discussion then proceeded to investment schemes and reverse mortgage scams (wherein they offer to have your property assessed and ask for payment for it). A variation of the latter includes asking you to pay for their home improvements with a reverse mortgage. He went on to warn about lottery frauds where scammers will ask you to pay taxes on your winnings or just take advantage of seniors’ aspirations to become rich and help their loved ones.

It didn’t stop there, though. He also pointed out COVID-related scams (they offer fake COVID-19 benefits), fake warrants on you or your family, Facebook giveaways, and free coupons (that are often too good to be true). All of these scams are intended to get valuable information from you.

The last scam he highlighted was the “devious” Grandparent Scam because it “relies on a grandparent’s love”. It usually entails scammers calling grandparents and they mention a specific name of that person’s grandchild and, from then on, assume his or her identity.

They’ll then start requesting money for various reasons or even ask for personal information such as your social security card number. They’re able to easily convince most grandparents because they appeal to their emotions by presenting a facade such as crying or panicking when making these requests. It’s important not to let your emotions dictate your response to these situations.

Indeed, in the end, active prevention is what counts the most, and this informational initiative will undoubtedly aid immensely in doing just that. Knowledge of how these scams work already goes a long way in steering clear of them.