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Colorado ranks eighth in the nation for financial crimes involving older adults, according to FBI data and each year criminals steal millions of their hard-earned dollars.

State lawmakers recently passed a bipartisan bill aiming to protect people age 70 and older from increasingly sophisticated scams. Between 2023 and 2024, there was a 43% increase in reported scams.

Karen Moldovan, advocacy director for AARP Colorado, said the actual rate is likely much higher. Most crimes go unreported because victims feel ashamed or embarrassed.

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"That's why we really think working with our financial institutions to delay, hold, and report suspicious transactions and to work with our customers to figure out what's going on is a really important tool for our state," Moldovan explained.

The pending law would allow bank and credit union staff to intervene if they suspect a customer is being targeted by criminals. Scammers also target younger Coloradans but officials said older adults are most vulnerable. They said if retirement savings are captured by criminals, it is harder for older people to reenter the workforce and rebuild their savings. The measure builds on reforms passed in 2017.

Moldovan noted new technologies, including artificial intelligence, make it much harder to tell what is real and what is a scam. Phishing phone calls and texts frequently have official agency caller IDs.

Moldovan added criminals are now even more convincing when they pretend to be a close relative asking a grandparent to send money right away to get out of a bind.

"There's one that we've heard of a lot where it's like a grandkid scam, where it really truly sounds like the voice calling of somebody's grandkid," Moldovan observed.

Moldovan emphasized scammers frequently impose hard deadlines to scare and confuse their victims. Under the soon-to-be-signed law, if a customer who typically makes monthly deposits is now asking to withdraw thousands of dollars or if they appear to be in crisis, staff can press pause.

"The bank teller would have an opportunity with House Bill 1110 to say, 'The fraudsters are so skilled right now. Let's hold this transaction while we make a couple quick calls, and we look and see if we can figure out if this is legitimate,'" Moldovan outlined.