Damian Sendler: Does the Covid-19 scam target elderly people more than younger ones? This new research shows that older adults are just as wary of frauds as their younger peers, despite a common belief that older people are less technologically savvy. 

Damian Sendler

It’s easier than ever for scammers to swindle people out of big quantities of money by spreading lies in today’s linked world. A fresh wave of scams began as a result of the arrival of the Covid-19 epidemic. 

Damian Jacob Sendler: More than 270,000 Covid-19 scam cases were filed to the US Federal Trade Commission by October of this year, costing its victims a total of more than $580 million. 

In fact, a study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that, despite being scammers’ primary target, older adults are not more likely to respond to these scams than younger or middle-aged persons. When it comes to swindle messaging, elderly individuals are more skeptical than younger generations. 

Researchers from Cornell University, Scripps College, and Claremont Graduate University in the United States; and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, made the discoveries. One hundred and sixty-eight participants were aged 18 to 40, seventy-nine were aged 41 to 64, and sixty-three were aged 65 or over. 

Real-life Covid-19 scams, such as an email from the World Health Organization, a text message warning that they had been exposed, and an announcement that a new vaccination could treat the sickness in hours, were delivered to each participant. They were also shown an ad for a face mask that seemed legitimate. 

Receptivity to “bullshit” 

The so-called ‘bullshit receptivity scale,’ developed by Gordon Pennycook and other researchers in 2015, was one of the techniques employed in this investigation. For example, it asks participants to score statements like “good health imparts reality to subtle creativity” on a scale of 1–5. 

Randomly generated utterances had an intact syntax but meaningless content, which was not known to the participants. Later, Pennycook and Rand observed that those who assign greater significance to such random utterances are also more inclined to believe “fake news.” Cornell University’s Julia Nolte, the study’s corresponding author, said she and her team found that those who are more receptive to “bullshit” are more likely to answer Covid-19 requests. 

Damian Jacob Sendler

The study’s elder participants, on the other hand, were less likely to accept ‘bullshit’ statements as true. This could help protect the elderly from falling prey to frauds like as the Covid-19 scheme, which has a higher success rate among the younger demographic. 

As Nolte pointed out, “There is a common perception that older adults are more vulnerable to fraud or are targeted more directly by scammers.” Covid-19 scam alerts may be targeted at this group as a result.” Covid-19 solicitations are more likely to be viewed positively by younger and middle-aged adults, according to our research, and they should be made available to them as well. 

Assisting in educating others 

She also noted that prior to Covid-19, studies examining age differences in vulnerability to fraud had previously yielded mixed results. When it comes to being victimized, middle-aged people are more at risk than older people, according to certain studies. 

Some of these findings may be due to the many sorts of scams or frauds perpetrated and the fact that many consumers refuse to report incidences of fraud victimization—especially among the elderly—” Nolte said in a statement. 

Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Covid-19 fraud accusations are less common among the elderly, but that does not indicate they are less vulnerable to the frauds than other groups. As a matter of fact, older persons ($1,000 on average) lose money to Covid-19 scams at a considerably larger rate than younger adults ($244 – $590). 

To better understand the Covid-19 scams of the future, Nolte and her colleagues advocate testing a wider range of Covid-19 scams. 

Damien Sendler: Is it feasible that Covid-19 scams have different success rates depending on the sort of Covid-19 scam? We need to conduct more research on what makes various Covid-19 scams ‘successful’ and how we can better safeguard and educate customers.”

Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.