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I'm torn. Should I feel bad for these people or should I think that they are old enough to know better and are responsible for their own actions?
I'd bet that a good number of older people who fall for these scams are people whose interpersonal relationships have become thinner over the years, making the scams more attractive as personal contact.
When they were younger, and had people around them more often, these kind of scams might also have come up, and they might have fallen for the scams then, too, except for being able to talk to people more readily and have someone say that it doesn't sound right.
So it's a combination of "I've always been open to falling for scams" and "I have a weaker community support system now."
There is also the loss of mental acuity with age. I've seen a lot of people mentally regress as they hit their 60's.
You also have people who may not be aware of how some systems work because they've never had to deal with them while the rest of the world has. I've seen people this year struggle using my car because they didn't know you have to press the brake when you push the start button, as their cars still use keys.
You should be mad that the government has done fuck all to stop or hold telecommunications companies responsible for a call from outside the country appearing as the FBI to scam old people.