Statistics have shown that people aged 50 and above hold about 70% of a country’s wealth. This is understandably so, seeing that this age group features people that have worked for a long time and have savings and assets stocked up for retirement. The financial independence of aging adults who have worked hard over the years has made them easy targets for fraudsters. Much worse is the extreme emotional vulnerability of aging adults which makes them fall victim to scams easily. Here’s how an over 55 community in New Albany, OH protects its residents from financial scams and fraud.
The Role of Retirement Communities
Retirement communities create an enabling environment for aging adults. In addition to senior living programs and amenities provided for residents, retirement communities offer a round-the-clock security service, ensuring full oversight of activities in the neighborhood to ensure the safety of residents.
Because elderly folks are more likely to fall for scams, team members in the community always ensure that only authorized family members are permitted to access the property. Retirement communities are fenced and patrolled by security guards to keep swindlers out.
Team members and counselors also hold discussions about common scams and how to avoid them, encouraging residents to involve family members and lawyers or financial advisors in confirming transactions before executing them.
How You Can Protect Yourself From Financial Fraud and Scams
While your community keeps swindlers away from having physical contact with you, you may still fall victim to online scams if you don’t protect yourself. Below are ways you can save yourself from financial scams:
- Protect your finances
Avoid giving out your banking, credit card, medicare and social security information to anyone through emails or over the phone. Fraudsters sometimes pose as bank officials in order to have access to your funds. If you ever receive emails or calls claiming to be from the bank or Internal Revenue Service, don’t give out your details. You can visit your bank physically to confirm what is going on instead. Additionally, don’t click links you receive in your email from an unknown sender.
- Learn about online and social media fraud
Knowledge is indeed power and the chances of falling victim are appreciably reduced if fraudulent moves are well understood. With the incessant rise in online and social media fraud, don’t hesitate to learn more about the dangers of online activities. You should be able to identify suspicious emails and messages so that you can easily protect yourself from fraudsters by ignoring and deleting them.
The advent of financial scams instills fear in the minds of many, both young and aging adults. However, you can protect your life savings by learning the scopes which fraudsters use in scamming their prey. This will help you identify potential scams and save you from them. Likewise, your retirement community will help to keep fraudsters out of your way so that you can enjoy peace of mind throughout retirement.
