Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has been hosting a series of town halls around the state about the growing number of scams targeting older adults.
The latest was June 10 in Douglas. Mayes talked about what seniors should be on the lookout for.
Mayes says these scams are getting more and more sophisticated. And it's costing seniors a lot of money — in some cases, their life savings.
Take the grandparent scam, for example. She says scammers are using artifical intelligence to clone voices found on social media. From there, they look for that person’s relative.
"And all of a sudden you're on the other end of a phone call from someone who sounds a lot like your grandchild or your child saying, 'Grandma, I'm being held hostage,'" said Mayes.
And scammers then demand thousands of dollars.
"So, we're telling people, hey, No. 1, this is happening. No. 2, arrange with your loved ones a safe word that only you know," she said.
Mayes says if someone asks you to wire money, pay with a gift card or use a Bitcoin ATM, that’s a red flag.
Her office is also seeing an uptick in text scammers impersonating government agencies.
"Claiming to be from the IRS, claiming to be from motor vehicles, claiming that you owe a toll fee. We don't, by the way, have toll roads in Arizona. So that's an easy one to discount."
Mayes says government agencies will never call, email or text you out of the blue to ask for money or personal information.
A 2024 Federal Trade Commission report to Congress found that older adults reported losing more than $1.9 billion to fraud in 2023.
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