“Older Americans lose billions annually to financial scams and experience a range of harms resulting from their victimization. At times our response is incredulous and at times sympathetic. What is nearly universal is a lack of understanding of why older adults fall victim to these scams.”
In his webinar, using brain science and psychological principles, Erik Lande, a neuropsychologist, guides attendees through an explanation of the mechanisms that facilitate vulnerability to financial scams.
Source: “The Neuropsychology behind Financial Scams” – A webinar found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywtlYQ7wEFM
Erik comes to the following conclusions:
Aging disproportionately affects the frontal lobe and pre-frontal cortex, which is involved in decision making and judgment – especially the kind of decisions involved in scams. This results in decreased ability to process information in a rapid manner. It also results in increased susceptibility to financial exploitation involving urgency and visceral/emotional information. Hence seniors are increasingly vulnerable due to their aging brain.
In addition, physical, emotional and societal issues play a role.
Senior adults have trouble holding onto information; they don’t think about it, and therefore may act impulsively. This is exacerbated by the visceral nature of scams. They tend to grab a person by the guts and one just tends to go along with the scammer.
Seniors are also disadvantaged by the fact that they are not up-to-date on technological advances and cannot readily discern what a scammer may be up to.
They may also have sensory limitations – hearing, sight – and other health issues, as well as feeling lonely which further makes them vulnerable to being taken advantage of by seemingly friendly callers.
In fact, many well-off seniors have lost much of their wealth through being scammed out of it.
Being in our seventies, we can attest to the above information kindly supplied by Erik Lande and his colleagues – and some of these factors may well have been at play in our being scammed financially.
Eva and Alexander Peck