CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Scams make people angry.
Unfortunately, that anger sometimes is directed at victims.
After the feds pressed criminal charges against companies that used arrest threats to bully people into paying debts they didn't owe, one reader emailed, "Just as I don't feel sorry for people who have wallets or purses stolen from their cars (how dumb is that?) I can't feel sorry for people who won't hang up the phone."
After a recent column about computer-tech scams, a reader posted a critique of his 86-year-old, legally blind mother-in-law, who signed papers she couldn't read when she was alone with a salesman during an in-home presentation. Her son-in-law's post ended by addressing her, "You are a foolish old woman, and I'm through trying to help you. As they say, you can't fix stupid. Where have her marbles gone?"
People find it reassuring to blame victims. We all think we're smart. So if we can write scam victims off as stupid, we can fool ourselves into believing we're scam-proof.
In reality, people who get ripped off tend to be people who are vulnerable at the unfortunate moment when they meet someone whose job it is to take advantage of them. They're people who make mistakes. And we can learn a lot from listening to what they're saying without trying to pin blame on them.
At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Cleveland PBS affiliate WVIZ is airing a short film called, "Fleeced: Speaking Out about Senior Financial Abuse," in which senior citizens and their families speak openly about rip-offs and their fallout.
Although the film looks at the sweepstakes and other relatively simple scams that bedevil senior citizens, it also makes it clear that some rip-offs start not in boiler rooms but board rooms.
One California woman shares her story of approaching her bank for a small loan to fix her car. They gave her a $500 deposit advance loan – a bank-style payday loan – for which she wound up paying $3,000 over the next five years.
"You kinda think you're going to trust your bank because they're on your side," Annette Smith told the filmmakers. "Where'd we get that idea?"
A Cleveland homeowner, Anita Gardner, shares her story of how a life-threatening illness caused her to fall behind on mortgage payments. She raided her retirement funds, jumped through hoops and made good faith payments to the servicer six different times. When the servicer changed the rules again, she told filmmakers, she tried to pay off the loan in full – but the servicer returned the check.
As much as "Fleeced" is a story of the rip-offs aimed at older people, it's also a story about the transformative power of speaking up.
Experts estimate that one in five seniors falls victim to financial abuse, a broad term for everything from everyday scams to ploys by professionals and, sadly, schemes by relatives.
Scammers that target people of all ages, but seniors are go-tos for scammers.
Older people have assets built up over a lifetime. They also have some frailties that make them especially vulnerable. They may be newly widowed. Some are dealing with financial worries that make them eager to grab what looks like a solution. Some have health problems that sap the energy they need to fend off predators.
Several studies have found that some people lose the ability to spot scams as they age. Vulnerable older people make mistakes – ones they're often reluctant to talk about afterward.
With America graying so quickly, figuring out how to protect seniors from losing money to ripoffs is going to become a pressing policy issue.
To find answers, we need to stop blaming victims and to start listening to them.
"Fleeced" airs at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on WVIZ/PBS and at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. every day through Dec. 7 on Cleveland's government access channel, TV20.
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