Shares tips about financial scams against senior citizens
VILLAS — Elder financial fraud is on the rise, with criminals seeking to take advantage of a vulnerable population. Being vigilant against potential financial exploitation requires understanding scams and knowing the red flags.
“Anybody that is over the age of 65 is the target audience,” FBI Special Agent Derek Altieri said. “They will attack you if you have money; they are looking for you.”
Altieri led a presentation on the prevalence of scams targeting the elderly organized by the Lower Township Chamber of Commerce on May 20. The well-attended event filled the Millman Center, encouraging community awareness about various financial scams.
State Sen. Mike Testa, Lower Township Mayor Frank Sippel, Lower Township Deputy Police Chief Mike Majane, Detective Kaitlin Black and Judge Surrogate E. Marie Hayes were in attendance.
“This is such a wonderful outpouring of community on a very important topic,” Testa said. “It’s wonderful that the community comes together to educate people so they don’t become victims of awful predators.”
Chamber Executive Director Linda Williams said due to the overwhelming response to the event, she plans to schedule several more fraud presentations in the future.
“Everyone is vulnerable to this. Please don’t feel that if you have gotten these calls to keep it to yourself,” Hayes said. “Nobody is going to fault you if anything happened to you; you need to come forward and tell someone.”
Majane said if residents ever have a question about whether something feels amiss, to give the police department a call.
Background
Altieri began his career in the U.S. Air Force before joining the FBI, and he has been an agent for 26 years, solely focused on financial crimes.
“Two years ago, I was driving home from work, and we were getting a lot of victims coming into the office and it was just a little bit too late,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘We’ve got to get ahead of this,’ and I reached out to all the area banks and brought them into the office and came up with a game plan.”
The FBI works alongside law enforcement and financial institutions to address financial schemes. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is the FBI’s central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crimes.
When a person has been scammed out of money, Altieri said calling the IC3 is an important step. The IC3 is open 24/7 and is divided into sections, including criminal investigations, cyber division, recovery assets and cyber watch.
In 2025, the IC3 received more than 1 million complaints, with a total loss of $20 million.
Altieri said the IC3 works closely with banks, which have mandatory reporting mechanisms for financial crimes. In 2024, New Jersey reported $801 million in financial loss and in 2025, it was $2.2 billion.
Altieri added the numbers are likely underreported because it was only reported from banks, which do not necessarily see it from beginning to end. He noted that this year from Jan. 1 to April 30, the loss in New Jersey is $452 million, which will likely surpass last year’s numbers.
“I had the opportunity to go to a conference at the National White Collar Crime Center and listened to an attorney general from California speak and she put the crimes against the elderly in this quote: ‘We are watching a generation of wealth get stolen before our eyes,’” Altieri said.
He added that these financial schemes are happening across the United States, even in Cape May County.
“This crime attacks every single person, whether the person is a retired law enforcement officer, doctor, attorney, stay-at-home mom, you name it,” he said.
Altieri explained that the trend of transnational crimes committed by groups began to rise in prevalence in 2017-18. When the pandemic hit, the online scam infrastructure was already in place to go after the senior population.
Types of scams
Altieri said there are several areas of concern that people can watch for regarding scams. When sending funds, vigilance against business email compromise is critical.
“What the bad actors are trying to do is spoof emails of who you think you’re dealing with, like the bank or Morgan Stanley,” he said. “They can make that say anything they want. It’s not until you take your mouse and you hover over it and see something like Gmail; it’s fraud.”
Altieri said that if there is any doubt about whether the money is going to the right place, people can visit a bank and speak with a manager. It is especially important to do so with transfers exceeding $10,000 and large real estate transactions.
“If you send or deposit those monies and it goes to the wrong place, it is very, very difficult for us to get it back,” he said. “Today, these monies are going right to virtual currency platforms and once they’re inside those wallets, it makes it very complicated, if not impossible.”
– By RACHEL SHUBIN/For the Sentinel
