The American people lost $12.5 billion to online criminals and scammers in 2023, and according to the FBI, $652 million of that went to romance and confidence scams. Scammers are getting bolder and more ambitious, and bleeding older people — who may have diminished faculties, or are merely lonely and easy prey for a dedicated scammer — for hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. How to intervene is often an issue for their kids, who have to try to convince a parent or, barring that, a court that sending a life’s savings to a person pretending to be a professional wrestler ought to be intervened upon.
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