Scams are getting smarter — is your facility ready?

by John O'Connor

There’s a new kind of threat targeting your residents. 

It won’t show up on vitals, carry an infection risk or trip wandering alarms. But it can wipe out life savings and destroy trust. If left unaddressed, it can also put your facility at risk for financial, reputational and regulatory consequences.

The US Senate Special Committee on Aging’s 2025 fraud report, “Age of Fraud: Scams Facing Our Nation’s Seniors,” paints a troubling picture. Older Americans lost $4.8 billion to scams in 2024, up from $3.4 billion the year before.

What’s behind this surge? A powerful new accomplice: artificial intelligence. Scammers are cloning voices, creating fake videos, and impersonating relatives or officials with unnerving realism.

The FBI reported $16.6 billion in cybercrime losses last year, a 33% jump. Cryptocurrency scams targeting older adults accounted for nearly $3 billion. Peer-to-peer payment fraud — via apps like Zelle, Venmo and CashApp — added another $391 million.

This isn’t just a consumer protection issue. When a scam targets someone in your care, it becomes your operational problem. If a resident’s funds are drained, rent and care payments may stop. If a cognitively impaired resident believes they’re in danger, that anxiety becomes a care disruption. And when a scam goes undetected, tough questions can follow — from families, ombudsmen and regulators.

So, what’s an operator to do?

Start by treating scam prevention as part of your resident safety strategy. Train frontline staff to recognize red flags: urgent requests, secrecy, odd financial behavior, or shifts in mood or trust. If they can spot fall risks, they can learn this too.

Also, keep families in the loop. Yes, they’re busy — but they need to be informed about current scams, especially AI-driven ones.

And don’t forget to review your policies. Does your abuse prevention or incident reporting protocol mention financial exploitation? Do staff know when and how to escalate concerns? If not, now’s the time to update.

This threat isn’t going away. AI, cryptocurrency and social media are making scams more common and harder to detect.

Scammers are evolving. Skilled nursing providers must do the same. Preventing a mess is almost always easier than cleaning one up. 

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Scams are getting smarter — is your facility ready?