“If We Don’t Listen to Them, We Make Them Lose More than Money:” Exploring Reasons for Underreporting and the Needs of Older Scam Victims

Katalin Parti () and Faika Tahir
Additional contact information
Katalin Parti: Department of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Faika Tahir: Department of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: Highly manipulative online and telephone scams committed by strangers target everyone, but older individuals are especially susceptible to being victimized. This study aimed to (1) identify why older individuals decide not to report scams and, in parallel, (2) explore the needs of victims. Thirty-five interviews were conducted with Virginia residents who were 60 years or older in 2021. The interpretive phenomenological analysis of the semi-structured interviews revealed that victims are reluctant to report crimes or ask for help from their family or community because much-needed emotional, educational, and technical help is often inaccessible or inadequate. In particular, we found that family responses tend to intrude on privacy, community responses are not meaningful or are non-existent, police responses are inadequate, and prevention programs are inaccessible and not specified to meet the needs of older age groups. We recommend developing age-appropriate prevention and education programs, by applying the intergenerational group approach, and actively listening to victims’ concerns before deciding what means of help should be applied. Research implications and recommendations are presented.

Keywords: scam; fraud; older individuals; reporting; interpretive phenomenological analysis; needs; victim; community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/5/264/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/5/264/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:5:p:264-:d:1135945

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().