 TITLE: How to Prevent Senior Identity Theft CONTENT: Types of Senior Identity Theft\n------------------------------\nAccording to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), people over age 60 are more likely to report a tech scam and less likely to report retail-related scams, especially when they involve financial loss. But there are a variety of scams out there that specifically target older adults to steal their identity. Here are some of the most common types of senior identity theft:\n*   **Tech scams**: You receive a phone call warning that there is a virus on your computer or that your software is out of date and needs to be replaced. The caller may ask for credit card numbers or for email addresses and passwords in order to \"fix\" the problem.\n*   **Medicare fraud or other medical identity theft**: Someone claiming to be a representative with Medicare or your health care provider requests sensitive personal information that's \"missing\" from the medical records.\n*   **IRS scams**: Bogus IRS calls typically start to come in around tax time. The caller threatens you with arrest or foreclosure due to back taxes you supposedly haven't paid and demands payment immediately.\n*   **Estate identity theft or funeral scams**: Fraudsters follow obituaries to steal sensitive information from the deceased, using personally identifiable information (PII) such as birth dates, hometowns and any other information they can cull. Scammers may turn up at funerals to take advantage of grieving family members or rob the home while the family is attending services.\n*   **Military identity theft**: The scammer uses PII to take claim of your military benefits, or they contact you claiming to represent the Veteran's Administration and request personal information.\n*   **Phone scams and robocalls**: These callers may want you to claim a free vacation, donate to charity or get some other special offer, all with the goal of getting your credit card number and other pieces of personal information.\n*   **Grandparent scam**: You get a frantic phone call from your \"grandchild,\" who needs you to bail them out of jail in a foreign country or give them money after they were mugged. Of course, your grandchild is at home, perfectly safe, but if you're not careful, your money could be on its way to a fraudster.\n*   **Romance scams**: Someone reaches out to you on a dating site and starts chatting. You two hit it off, and soon, the person is asking for intimate details about you. Suddenly a financial crisis comes up and the person needs to you send money or offer your credit card number. This scammer then disappears with your money and your information. END