A phone buzzes with a text demanding unpaid tolls or rings with a call from a strange number pretending to be a well-known bank. A pop-up advertisement on a laptop claims your identity has been stolen.
In recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, Montgomery County officials mentioned these and other scams during an event Tuesday morning at Holiday Park Senior Center in Silver Spring sponsored by the Montgomery County Elder/Vulnerable Adult Abuse Task Force, the county state’s attorney’s office, police and fire departments, and Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’re going to have 230,000 people over the age of 65 by 2030 in this county. We have a big job educating, protecting that community,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said to the hundreds of seniors in attendance. “Because one of the sad things we do know is you get targeted.”
The police cited data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center showing the state registered 1,385 complaints of tech support and government imposter scams in 2024 and lost nearly $30 million to these crimes. Those complaints are up 41% over three years while losses are up 15%. Nationally, losses are up 79% over the same three-year period.
The presentations included the most common financial scams as well as who is likely to carry them out. Data from the state’s attorney’s office showed that 84% of confirmed perpetrators of financial exploitation of elders are family members, with close to half of that group being adult children of the elderly.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that your family member is going to steal from you, I don’t want you to have that takeaway,” county police Detective Sean Petty told the crowd. “It is possible that there may be some family who may see an opportunity to exploit you.”
Petty advised the seniors to have multiple sets of eyes on their retirement and savings accounts and to also tell others about whom they have designated as holding their power of attorney and what legal responsibilities that entails.
Petty, who heads the police department’s financial crime section, warned specifically of so-called gold bar scams.
The ruse involves someone who impersonates a government official to convince victims that their money has fallen into the hands of criminals and the victims need to transfer their assets in gold bars, which the fake agent will hold for them until their “investigation concludes.”
As of August, around 20 people in Montgomery County were victims to that ploy. County police have arrested and charged six people. In December, a Rockville man received a 10-year prison sentence, with all but five years suspended, in the county’s first sentencing resulting from a local gold bar scam conviction.
Other scams outlined at Tuesday event included fake texts from the state Motor Vehicle Administration or U.S. Internal Revenue Service claiming the recipient must make urgent outstanding payments and homeowner scams where a scammer knocks on a victim’s door, to convince them they urgently need work done such as tree trimming or roof repairs
Petty said the county’s reputation of wealth may be why residents are targeted.
“We have a large population that has a lot of money, and a large elder population with a lot of money,” Petty told Bethesda Today after the presentation Tuesday. “So [Montgomery County is] ripe for the picking.”
During Tuesday’s presentations, experts repeated one theme:
“Here’s a terrible reality: in many instances, particularly with this financial fraud, the ability to get your money back [once you’ve been scammed] is very small,” McCarthy said to the seniors.
That makes the prevention of these scams all the more important, according to McCarthy and the police.
“It’s OK to tell people no,” Petty told the seniors. “ ‘No’ is a sentence. It is not a question.”
