Abstract
While the majority of studies on the fear of crime focus on the impact of violent and property crimes at the population level, financial fraud against senior citizens is often under-investigated. This study uses data collected from 1061 older citizens in the community through a cross-sectional survey in Hong Kong to examine the levels of fear and perceived risk among Chinese senior citizens toward financial fraud and the factors behind them. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the explanatory power of four theoretical perspectives (vulnerability, victimization, social integration, and satisfaction with police) on fear and perceived risk of fraud victimization. The results indicate significant predictive effects of victimization experience and satisfaction with police fairness and integrity on both the fear and the perceived risk of fraud among respondents. The findings not only confirm the differential impact of theoretical explanations on these constructs but can also contribute to crime prevention policy and practice in an aging society.
Highlights
Elder financial fraud, which is termed as “elder financial abuse” (EFA) in this study, refers to “any form of intentional perversion of truth, or trickery deliberately practice in order to gain advantage or end, unfairly and dishonestly, in order to deprive another person of his her property, legal rights, or interests, or to induce another person to relinquish something of value, and which causes that person to suffer a loss” (p. 5, [1])
Our findings indicate that respondents who had participated in a crime prevention seminar and activities in the previous 12 months were likely to have a higher level of fear of fraud
Several limitations associated with this study should be noted when interpreting the findings reported above
Summary
Elder financial fraud, which is termed as “elder financial abuse” (EFA) in this study, refers to “any form of intentional perversion of truth, or trickery deliberately practice in order to gain advantage or end, unfairly and dishonestly, in order to deprive another person of his her property, legal rights, or interests, or to induce another person to relinquish something of value, and which causes that person to suffer a loss” The prevalence of EFA has been examined in different societies. A meta-analytic study revealed that the fraud–scam prevalence (up to a five-year period) among older adults in the U.S was. A survey study conducted with a clinical sample in Mainland China concluded that the prevalence of EFA was 13.6% [3]. Older people tend to become victims largely because they (a) are less likely to report and acknowledge being victims of financial fraud [4],
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