Smoke & Mirrors: Scammed And Scarred, How Seniors Navigate Cyber Traps

The 2020 movie, I Care A Lot, is a grisly tale of a ruthless professional exploiting senior citizens to siphon off their wealth. At the heart of this black comedy-cum-thriller is the vulnerability of senior citizens to frauds, which can lead to financial destitution and trauma for the victims and can affect their relatives, too, in complicated ways. The movie is a work of fiction, but cases of fraud and cheating with senior citizens as victims are all too common in real life, too. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau report of 2022, forgery, cheating and fraud (FCF) constitute 11 per cent of the crimes committed against senior citizens. Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka are among the top three states in terms of the number of FCF crimes against senior citizens. A recent survey by Netrika Consulting India Pvt. Ltd, a Gurgaon-based cybersecurity and risk management...