Of the 1,260 respondents surveyed, only 3% said they had invested after being given a free meal; only 1% invested after receiving a phone call or email from someone they didn’t know; 1% invested in investments paying off more than 10% a day or penny stock/oil-and-gas deals; and 1% said they had purchased a fraudulent investment recommended by a friend, relative or financial adviser in the past five years. Another 1% said they had bought investments where they had been knowingly misled.

All told, almost 8% of the over-50 group admitted that they had fallen prey to at least one of these fraudulent activities over the past five years. What’s more, exposure to financial fraud uncovered in our study was twice as large as reported in other studies, probably because we probed for specific instances of financial fraud while other studies did not.

Casting a wider net, we also found that almost one-third indicated that others had used or attempted to use the respondent’s accounts without permission, and one-third said that they had been exposed to financial scams during the past five years. This figure is far higher than found in other studies that have asked less detailed questions about victimization at older ages.

Accordingly, we conclude that financial fraud experienced by the over-50 population is a large and important problem, and more prevalent than commonly believed.

So what can be done?

Banks, insurers, credit-card companies and online service providers need to enhance protections for their older customers to ensure that they are not financially victimized. Several new efforts are under way; for instance, the AARP has a new program training bank tellers how to recognize when customers show signs of declining mental capacity or are being financially exploited.

Meanwhile, the use of robocall blockers like Nomorobo can help shut down the increasing number of  phone scammers and telemarketers targeting cellphone numbers.

Policymakers also will need to do more to protect our nation’s aging and increasingly financially vulnerable population. Several states have laws on the books protecting elders from financial exploitation, permitting triple damages for victims winning legal cases against their perpetrators. This needs to expand. The Senate’s Special Committee on Aging’s fraud hotline at 1-855-303-9470 can help by offering steps that consumers can take. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is still open for complaints about financial fraud.

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