Abstract
There has been little research identifying older adults at risk of fraud despite increasing media attention to this societal problem. Previous research has suggested that there is no ‘typical’ profile of older fraud victims, partly because scams can be tailored to specific types of people. Using data from a module we developed and fielded in the 2016 Health and Retirement Study (N=1,260), we evaluate the incidence and risk factors for different types of fraud and the consequences of victimization for older persons’ (age 50+) financial well-being. We find that relatively few HRS respondents experienced any single form of investment fraud over the previous five years, but 8% did report at least one type. A very high percentage of respondents (30%) indicated that others had used or attempted to use one of their accounts without permission. Financial literacy was negatively associated with the probability of investing with a cold caller, but positively associated with investing based on a “free-meal” investment seminar. Counterintuitively, fraud victimization was linked to a reported increase in net housing wealth in 2016 but was unrelated to non-housing wealth. Overall, there was no systematic association between fraud sub-types and covariates such as education, wealth, health, depression, age, sex, and marital status, suggesting that psychological and situational factors may be more important drivers of victimization and should be included in future studies. Additional research should explore how victimization predicts future changes in wealth when later waves of the HRS become available.