Changing Gears

The topic of elder fraud is of critical importance to all Americans, not just the elderly, as it affects entire families. While I still enjoy and use instructional design tools in my projects, I want to hone the focus of this blog to elder fraud for a while.

Today I want to look more closely at the importance of reporting - quickly. I have heard some people state that once a victim pays through cryptocurrency, there is no chance of recovering those funds, as they are quickly distributed to other accounts around the world.

However, this is not entirely true. In 2018, the FBI established a Recovery Asset Team (RAT) and developed a Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC) - a mechanism developed with domestic and international partners to stop and sometimes even reverse financial transactions that were a part of fraud. Millions of dollars have been frozen or recovered using the FFKC. The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center Report discusses this is detail on page 17 of the report.

An FBI agent told me that, although it can be difficult, recovery of assets is possible, provided that the incident and associated details are reported to the IC3 within 36 hours. Rapid reporting is critical. And even if it has been more than 36 hours, it is important to report to the FBI. Your incident may likely be part of a larger criminal action, and who knows how your information could assist the law enforcement community.

So don't let anyone tell you there is no point in reporting your case of elder fraud. The training module that I have developed includes a video on how to report. It is less than 9 minutes in length, and you can find it in the Learning and Resources section of our training module.