Do you know an older person affected by fraud?

This is a guest post by Joel Lewis.  All views expressed are Joel’s own and not necessarily shared by Which?. 

An older person becomes the victim of fraud every 40 seconds, equivalent to more than 800,000 last year in England and Wales.

Age UK is the country’s largest charity working on behalf of older people and we are currently conducting research on the impact of fraud and speaking to those affected.

Raising awareness

Whilst there is increasing awareness of scams sent by email, people are often targeted by pension and investment fraud as well as postal, phone and doorstep scams.

Financial losses are common, but being scammed can also seriously affect a person’s health, confidence and independence.

Scams are increasingly sophisticated and ordinary people who have done everything reasonably possible to protect themselves can still suffer life-changing losses.

As a charity, we help raise awareness, provide advice and support those affected by fraud. We also campaign and work with the police, banks and local agencies to try and improve the system of prevention and support.

Can you help?

We want to use the voice of older people to make the case for improved protection and support. If you have an experience you would like to share, please get in touch.

We are particularly interested in speaking to those that have an experience of:

⚠ Courier fraud (being contacted by phone by someone pretending to be the police or your bank)

⚠ Recovery scams (being contacted after becoming victim of a scam with a promise to help recover the money you lost)

⚠ Rogue traders (someone paid to carry out a job e.g. a roofer that is never carried out or done to a very poor quality)

⚠ Benefit fraud (a fraudster may steal your identity in order to claim benefits in your name. This can result in legitimate benefit payments to the person being stopped)

Interviews would normally be conducted by phone and any comments you make or information we use would be completely anonymised unless you had given us express permission otherwise.

Please get in touch in the comments if you have any questions. If you’d rather discuss anything privately, you can contact me directly by email.

This was a guest post by Joel Lewis. All views expressed were Joel’s own and are not necessarily shared by Which?.