Why It's Easier To Scam The Elderly | Redux

Why It's Easier To Scam The Elderly

Excerpt:

Fraud victims are more likely to open official-looking sweepstakes and other mailings. A new study says the elderly are more susceptible than the young to being swindled. Fraud victims are more likely to open official-looking sweepstakes and other mailings. A new study says the elderly are more susceptible than the young to being swindled. Allen Breed/AP Lots of scams come by phone or by mail, but when the scam artist is right in front of you researchers say the clues are in the face. "A smile that is in the mouth but doesn't go up to the eyes; an averted gaze; a backward lean" are some of the ways deception may present itself, says Shelley Taylor, a psychologist at UCLA. Taylor wanted to know if older people recognized these visual cues as readily as younger people.

Concepts:

Confidence trick Middle age Fraud Old age Deception Ponzi scheme Ageism Gerontology

People:

Doug Shadel

Overall Sentiment: 0.20265

Relevance: 0.934543

Sentiment	Quote
-0.162098	"Fraud victims tend to be much more likely to do things like open junk mail, listen to unknown callers on the phone who are telemarketing," says Doug Shadel, ...
-0.162098	"Fraud victims tend to be much more likely to do things like open junk mail, listen to unknown callers on the phone who are telemarketing," says Doug Shadel, who's with AARP in Washington state and who headed the survey. "They're more open to putting themselves in sales situations and this explains in part why they may be defrauded."
Sentiment Stats:	Number of Quotes: 2 Aggregate Sentiment: -0.324196 Mean: -0.162098 Standard Deviation: 0

Shelley Taylor

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.903569

Sentiment	Quote
0.0659308	"A smile that is in the mouth but doesn't go up to the eyes; an averted gaze; a backward lean" are some of the ways deception may present itself, says Shelley Taylor, ...
Sentiment Stats:	Number of Quotes: 1 Aggregate Sentiment: 0.0659308 Mean: 0.0659308 Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Disambiguation: References:

• Shelley Taylor: dbpedia
• Shelley Taylor: freebase
• Shelley Taylor: umbel
• Shelley Taylor: yago

Allen Breed/AP

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.46563

Shelley

Overall Sentiment: 0.405818

Relevance: 0.456215

Sentiment	Quote
0.457582	"It's part of this effort to make life more positive after a certain point in life, which is normally just a wonderful thing," Shelley says. ...
0.415316	"It's part of this effort to make life more positive after a certain point in life, which is normally just a wonderful thing," Shelley says. "Older adults are really great emotional regulators, but it leaves them with this particular vulnerability so that they don't recognize untrustworthy cues when they should be."
Sentiment Stats:	Number of Quotes: 2 Aggregate Sentiment: 0.872898 Mean: 0.436449 Standard Deviation: 1.7320508075689

Key:

• Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
• The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
• The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

Additional Info:

StateOrCounty: Washington

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.420034

Disambiguation: References:

• Washington
• Washington: dbpedia
• Washington: freebase
• Washington: opencyc
• Washington: yago

Organization: AARP

Overall Sentiment: -0.0252614

Relevance: 0.626835

Disambiguation: MembershipOrganizationReferences:

• AARP
• AARP: dbpedia
• AARP: freebase
• AARP: umbel
• AARP: yago

Organization: UCLA

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.452549

Disambiguation: SportsTeam | Location | CollegeUniversity | UniversityReferences:

• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, Los Angeles: dbpedia
• University of California, Los Angeles: freebase
• University of California, Los Angeles: opencyc
• University of California, Los Angeles: yago

Webpage Meta Tags

Provided Desc:

New research suggests older adults may have less activity in the very area of the brain that processes risk and subtle danger. Another possible reason older adults don't pick up on warning signs is an increasing bias against negativity.

Webpage Provided Keywords:

URL Provided Title:

Why It's Easier To Scam The Elderly

Source Webpage: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/12/06/166609270/why-its-easier-to-scam-the-elderly?ft=1&f=1006

Data Sources

Full Content: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/12/06/166609270/why-its-easier-to-scam-the-elderly?ft=1&f=1006

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