American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), a leading organization representing seniors, who are often targets of fraud due to their predisposition to holding more wealth and availability to go after, played an important role in a session held during fraud awareness month by Banking Dive. Other experts participated on an informative panel discussion with a cross-sectoral approach going beyond banks.
See the article below which provides some key panel highlights.
Scam prevention needs to focus ‘upstream’ from banks: panel
Gabrielle Saulsbery Reporter
When a trained employee intervenes in a fraudulent bank transaction, they can stop a scam “before a single dollar leaves the account,” said Jilenne Gunther, national director of an AARP program focused on protecting seniors from fraud.
Bank employees that place a hold on a suspicious transaction or delay the transaction to ask questions stop the scams about half the time, Gunther said, citing research from AARP’s BankSafe Initiative.
Gunther spoke alongside Kris Edwards, Fifth Third’s head of fraud prevention, and Avy Mallik, a partner at Morrison Foerster and former general counsel at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, at a panel hosted by Banking Dive and Payments Dive on Wednesday.
Training on warning signs is ongoing for Fifth Third staff, Edwards said, and the bank maintains mechanisms for its retail staff to share information on fraud and threats up the chain.
While large institutions like Fifth Third often have dedicated fraud intelligence teams, smaller banks and fintechs may not.
But size, Mallick said, is not an excuse when things go wrong – and institutions, no matter the size, need to have a handle on it.
“Speaking as a former regulator, the regulator will expect you to have the right systems in place to find these red flags and to have the right amount of methodology to understand the typology of fraud and assess what the best course of action is,” he said.
To avoid becoming the weakest link, Mallick said, small banks and fintechs with limited resources should work with well-reputed vendors “that do the work for them, while also making sure that the licensee has the right amount of oversight over the vendor.”
With an average loss of $17,000 per case, she said, citing suspicious activity reports, “we need to bring in these social media companies at the point where [scammers are] first contacting consumers, to look at shared liability.”
Edwards echoed Gunther, adding that’s a focal point of his when discussing the issue with regulators.
AARP’s March/April Bulletin headlined as FRAUD 2026 – Your Guide to Spotting Scams – features numerous stories and helpful tips on avoiding scams, including promoting numerous US local community scam-fighting and/or fraud prevention workshops at aarp.org/fraudsafety.
While AARP is a member organization at a very reasonable membership price, its AARP Fraud Watch Network is free to all Americans so should be one to check out if you want to learn more about how to protect your money and become more informed on new emerging threats such as AI. There is also an international membership so Canadians for example can join and have access to great publications on the one referenced here.
Here is a link to a current news story on common red flags the AARP Fraud Watch Network wants you to be aware of. AARP highlights common red flags in scams targeting Americans | 2WTK | wfmynews2.com
AARP also produces The Perfect Scam series which showcases voices of victims and law enforcement.
The red-hot scams AARP says you need to watch out for and avoid in 2026 are employment scams, recovery scams, digital arrest, “hello pervert” scams and self-publishing scams.
