It started with downloading an app. Within minutes, Kay Huber found herself writing a check for $766 to a scammer’s bank account in hopes of installing a “security service” on her newly bought computer.

Her story is similar to thousands playing out daily.

In the past few decades, electronic devices have grown from tools intended for calculations to a stream of complex networks that allow users to communicate, learn, access information, and more.

While these tools may be harmless in one way, the advancement of technology has consequently opened the world to online personas eager to extract money and information from users.

According to a report by the FBI, in 2023, American consumers lost $12.5 billion due to cyber scams, a 22% increase from 2022. Today, the fraud report shows no signs of slowing down due to scammers’ ability to use the advancement of technology to conduct their scams more seamlessly and successfully.

“I keep hearing and reading more and more stories about victims and the scams they fell into. They just never stop,” said Mona Salvi, the Senior Director of Product at HubSpot.

Scammers swipe billions of dollars annually by playing on victims’ emotions and exploiting their vulnerabilities. After the scam is conducted, victims are often left with financial loss and faced with negative effects on their health.

“I never knew the severity of scams until I became a victim,” Huber said.

Victim vulnerability

Although anyone who owns a technological device is at risk of getting cyber-scammed, some groups find themselves more prone to being approached by scammers.

Those born during the baby boomer generation, consisting of individuals born between 1946 and 1964, make up one of the most common scammer target groups.

While only comprising 21% of the United States population in 2023, the Federal Reserve found baby boomers make up nearly $72 trillion of the wealth in the United States. These numbers reflect more than half the total wealth available.  

According to James Curtis, the Cybersecurity Program Director in the Math & Computer Science Department at Webster University, older individuals have racked up more savings in their lifetime making them an open target to scammers looking to score large sums of money.

“Many of these people have accumulated shares of money from past relatives, investments, compounding interests, retirement funds, and more,” Curtis said.

In addition, Curtis says that by being raised in a generation where electronic devices were not as widespread and developed, older individuals sometimes find themselves struggling to navigate through device controls and tools. 

Others often lack knowledge about scams making it difficult to know when they are faced with legitimate scenarios.

“The majority of older individuals are less cybersecurity savvy, and scammers use this commonality to take advantage of them,” Salvi said.

Once the money has been extracted, these victims are oftentimes found unaware of the situation, perpetuating a cycle of recurring scams in the coming years.

Scams that target older individuals often reflect on new technological creations like Artificial Intelligence (AI).

According to Curtis, a recent scam tactic used on older individuals has been scamming from the perspective of loved ones. Since the recent rise of AI-powered tools, scammers have been leveraging voice recordings to personalize scams and make them more believable.

“Scammers will mimic the grandchildren of older people. They tell them that they have been arrested and that they need money right away for bail. If they don’t send them the money, they might be hurt or have other consequences,” Curtis said.

In hopes of “saving” their friends or family, many victims give in.

Contrary to popular belief, adolescents make another prime target for scammers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that on average, 50.4% of adolescents aged 12-17 spend over four hours online. Knowing this age group and their technology usage, scammers tailor their scamming techniques to maximize profits and increase success rates.

According to Salvi, scammers have been approaching teenagers and children through online games and social media to extract their personal information. 

Roblox, for example, is a popular online gaming platform that allows users to communicate with other players through immersive games. Statista found that as of the third quarter of 2024, Roblox had around 88.9 million daily active users, most of which were adolescents.

Unsure how to keep themselves safe or know when they are interacting with scammers, many adolescents share their usernames, passwords, or credit card information linked to in-game currencies in hopes of a reward. Later, they face the consequences, according to Salvi.

“The kids don’t know about cyber safety. They just want the nonexistent prize,” Salvi said.

In other online games like Fortnite, creators have been responsible for the loss of adolescents’ information and money.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, agreed to pay a $275 million penalty due to the infringement of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). An additional $245 million was placed for tricking millions of users into making unplanned in-game purchases.

“A lot of parents are getting concerned because games like Minecraft and Roblox lead kids into giving away their personal information to a seemingly friendly person on the other side,” Salvi said. 

These online games, however, are often capable of doing unrecoverable damage without parents or guardians knowing.

“It just ends up being a scammer who has now collected some information from a child about their address and other personal information,” Salvi said. “Their parents don’t even know until they see money draining from their bank account. Then, it is too late.” 

In today’s world, no one is immune to scams, according to Salvi.

Hidden psychology

Behind a scam often lies a scammer who has a profound understanding of human psychology. 

Scammers use a range of scamming tactics in order to manipulate their victims and achieve their goals of receiving sensitive information and acquiring money. 

According to Rob Stevenson, the founder of a cybersecurity business called Backupvault, scammers conduct research to uncover most of the information about their target victims or the online persona they are playing. When the scammer shares this information with their victims, the victims often believe they are approaching legitimate professionals.

“It starts with cybercriminals hacking into or impersonating a high-level employee’s email account, like a CEO or finance director,” Stevenson said.

Huber, for example, believed she was speaking to Microsoft Defense Services, a fake but authority-building title.

“They seemed legitimate. No foreign voice, allegedly located in Chicago, and they sounded like professionals,” Huber said. 

To factor in more than one scamming technique, some scammers incorporate panic-inducing strategies to trick their victims.

Dating back to early fraudulent schemes, scammers have used a sense of urgency to allow victims to act swiftly. According to Salvi, by encouraging prompt responses, scammers often eliminate the victim’s safety measures like verifying scam details and pausing to think twice.

“The scammer may tell their victims,: ‘If you don’t act now, then you may lose this offer’, or ‘If you don’t click on this link, then I won’t be able to offer you this job because I have five other people waiting,’” Salvi said.

Driven by the panic, many victims like Huber eventually give in to the scammer’s desires.

“The scammer told me I would need to send a check to them to ensure my computer runs smoothly,” Huber said. “If I didn’t, I would not be able to operate my system.”

When Huber refused to pay, the scammer turned to distractions as a way of getting hold of her account. 

Through various distractions, scammers have the ability to divert the victim’s attention away from their tricks and suspicious behaviors.

“Then, the scammer asked me if I like chocolate chip cookies, and offered me a recipe,” Huber said. “By downloading their recipe for chocolate chip cookies, they were able to get into my account.”

After the scam was conducted, Huber experienced lingering effects on her everyday life and overall health.

Beyond a mere scam

Without a doubt, scam victims are impacted differently depending on their emotional resilience and the severity of the scam. However, scams often affect the mental health of victims by perpetuating feelings such as helplessness and betrayal.

According to Salvi, victims may carry the scam-inducing trauma with them for extensive periods of time, affecting the overall quality and routine of their lives.

“It takes days, weeks, months, and in some cases, even years for a lot of the folks to reestablish themselves and come out of these bad experiences,” Salvi said.

While simultaneously facing the negative effects of the scam, these recovery periods allow for the healing of financial loss and the reconstruction of online trust. 

“I am starting to feel better now, but I couldn’t get out of bed for two days. I still have a lot yet to do to feel comfortable with the computer but I am working on it,” Huber said.

According to Salvi, once a victim’s personal information is extracted, it is out into the public and difficult to recover. When discussing cybersecurity, Salvi stresses the importance of learning to keep oneself safe to prevent getting scammed.

“I’ve been making a lot of adjustments and trying to learn how to use my new Microsoft 11 computer. I also discovered how to put a stop to getting scammed, one way being clicking control, alt, and delete,” Huber said.