DENVER — A recent study by the Better Business Bureau’s Institute for Marketplace Trust found young adults are more susceptible to and lose more money through scams than senior citizens.
The study dispels a common stereotype about scam victims.
“No matter what age group you're a part of, it's just good practice to be really careful, especially when you're buying things online or conducting business online,” said Meghan Compton, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in Colorado.
The study used data from the BBB’s Scam Tracker to determine that young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 lose a median of $200 to scams, while senior citizens lose $160.
“A lot of these [scams] are based online,” Compton said. “And I think a lot of us, but especially younger generations, are doing everything online these days.”
The riskiest scams for people ages 18 to 24 were employment scams, which were made more sophisticated with the recent move to more remote work following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Somebody will be made to believe that they have been hired by a company,” Compton said. “So then they may give personal information, social security numbers, bank account information, things like that, because they believe that it's their new employer.”
Some employment scams also convince young workers to give up bank account information by sending fake checks and asking the employee to wire money back to them to pay for equipment or training.
Other scams targeting that group include:
- Online Purchasing
- Cryptocurrency
- Rental
- Investment
- Fake check/money order
- Phishing
- Romance
- Advance loan fee
- Credit repair/debt relief
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