Protect someone
before the money moves.
Retail investigators and law-enforcement professionals see fraud patterns every day that most families never encounter until it happens to them. MAORCA Seniors turns that experience into practical tools for seniors, families, frontline retail employees, and investigators.
Why retail belongs in the solution
Retailers are often involved after a scam, preserving video, transactions, gift-card information, online-order records, money-services data, and other evidence. But retail may also encounter the victim while the fraud is still occurring.
That creates an opportunity to do more than document the loss. We can help slow the transaction, encourage independent verification, connect the victim with someone they trust, preserve intelligence, and help investigators follow the value.
PREVENT → INTERVENE → REPORT → INVESTIGATE
The program is built around four moments where families, retailers, and investigators can change the outcome.
Become the Trusted Person for a senior in your life.
MAORCA members already understand fraud, deception, criminal behavior, evidence, and investigative red flags. Put that experience to work for a parent, grandparent, older relative, neighbor, retired colleague, or family friend.
The goal is to establish the relationship before the scam happens. Give them the Senior Fraud Safety Guide, write your name and number in the CALL MY TRUSTED PERSON FIRST box, and ask them to call you before they act on an unexpected request involving money, accounts, gift cards, cryptocurrency, remote computer access, or secrecy.
- Choose one senior in your life.
- Give them the Senior Fraud Safety Guide.
- Write your name and phone number on it.
- Explain that sophisticated scammers can sound completely legitimate.
- Ask them to call you before they send money or provide sensitive information.
PREVENT
Give seniors simple rules and a real person to call before acting.
INTERVENE
Help frontline employees recognize concerning circumstances and create a pause.
REPORT
Move quickly when money or credentials have already been compromised.
INVESTIGATE
Follow the transaction, develop intelligence, connect related activity, and support the victim.
Prevent
Resources for seniors and families
The best intervention happens before money leaves the victim's control. These public resources are designed to be shared widely.
Senior Fraud Safety Guide
A one-page printable guide with common scam triggers, things never to do, independent verification steps, national resources, and a write-in Trusted Person area.
Do this before a crisis
Do not wait for a parent or loved one to be actively manipulated. Establish the “call me first” rule now and make clear that checking with you is never an inconvenience.
Intervene
Resources for frontline retail employees
Cashiers, service desks, money-services teams, managers, and asset-protection professionals may encounter a victim at the exact moment a scammer is directing the payment.
Age is not the indicator.
Employees should respond to the total circumstances: payment pattern, behavior, coaching, urgency, secrecy, and the story behind the transaction. The objective is to protect a customer, not stereotype one.
Create a pause.
The employee does not need to prove a scam. A calm interruption, independent verification, or a call to a Trusted Person may be enough to break the scammer's control before money is lost.
If fraud already happened
- Stop additional payments. Do not send more money to recover the first payment.
- Contact the financial provider. Ask whether the transaction can be stopped, frozen, recalled, or recovered.
- Preserve evidence. Save receipts, emails, texts, phone numbers, gift cards, screenshots, usernames, websites, and transaction information.
- Secure accounts and devices. If remote access or credentials were compromised, use a different trusted device.
- Report and get help. Use the appropriate national, local, or protective-services resource.
National resources
MAORCA provides information and practical guidance. These established resources can provide reporting, victim assistance, education, or specialized referrals.
Immediate danger: call 911. Suspected exploitation of a vulnerable adult may also warrant referral to Adult Protective Services.
Investigate
Retail investigators may uncover senior fraud during a live intervention, transaction review, money-services investigation, gift-card analysis, or online-order investigation. The goal is to move beyond the isolated retail event and follow the value through the network.
Senior Fraud Investigator Response Guide
Operational guidance for live intervention, evidence preservation, gift cards, money services, online orders, victim outreach, investigative legitimacy, intelligence development, legal research, and case building.
Open Investigator GuideSenior Fraud Concern Tool
Use a victim-centered alert to document concern, known fraud infrastructure, payment information, likely next locations, and appropriate handoff without treating the potential victim as an offender.
Open Concern ToolResearch the right law and the right partner
Terminology varies by jurisdiction. Investigators should consider searches for elder financial exploitation, vulnerable adult exploitation, financial exploitation of an older adult, and traditional fraud-related offenses.
MAORCA-developed educational resources. External organizations and government agencies are referenced for public information and assistance. No partnership or endorsement is implied. Employees and investigators should follow applicable law, company policy, privacy requirements, and authorized information-sharing procedures.