Fear and phoning: Telephones, fraud, and older adults in the UK
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02697580241254399 |
| Author | Mark Button,David Shepherd,Chloe Hawkins,Jacki Tapley |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580241254399
International Review of Victimology
2025, Vol. 31(1) 117 –134
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/02697580241254399
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Fear and phoning:
Telephones, fraud, and older
adults in the UK
Mark Button
University of Portsmouth, UK
David Shepherd
University of Portsmouth, UK
Chloe Hawkins
University of Portsmouth, UK
Jacki Tapley
University of Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
This study explores the experiences of attempted frauds and victimisation which use largely
telephone-based means of communication on predominantly over 75s in the United Kingdom.
Using a postal survey targeted at the clients of a charity working mostly with this age group,
two surveys were conducted during the 18-month life of the project, securing almost 2,000
responses, which sought to explore their experience of fraud as part of a wider evaluation of
a fraud prevention initiative. The surveys were supported by 18 interviews with clients and 7
interviews with the charity co-ordinator and volunteers. The research found higher rates of
victimisation than the norm for this group, combined with a large number of attempted frauds
predominantly via the telephone, with 20% of respondents experiencing at least weekly attempts.
The research highlights the first significant evidence of the fears, concerns, and anxieties among a
minority of this group of frauds/scams and their impact on their daily lives. The paper also offers
insights into telephone fraud and a typology of this crime.
Keywords
Older adults, fraud, scam, fear, telephones
Corresponding author:
Mark Button, Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime, University of Portsmouth, St George’s Building, 141 High
Street, Portsmouth PO1 2HY, Hampshire, UK.
Email: Mark.Button@port.ac.uk
1254399IRV0010.1177/02697580241254399International Review of Victimology X(X)Button et al.
research-article2024
Article
118International Review of Victimology 31(1)
Introduction
Some days, I have so many scam calls I could scream. I am disabled and I find these calls distressing as
blocking calls does not work as they use different numbers. (Female 774 NV)
In recent years, the dominant discourse regarding fraud has become cyber-related, with a small but
growing body of research rooted in how information and communication technology (ICT) such as
websites, emails, social media, the dark web, hacking, and so on have become central to perpetrat-
ing large numbers of frauds (see, e.g., Cross and Lee, 2022; Jung et al., 2022; Leukfeldt and Holt,
2022; Reyns et al., 2019; Whittaker and Button, 2020). There is little doubt that cyber accounts for
a significant volume of fraud, indeed the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated
61% of frauds have a cyber element (ONS, 2023). The focus on cyber, however, has obscured the
large numbers of frauds that are still perpetrated by the telephone either completely or partly (i.e.,
a phone call that leads to the victim switching on their computer). Telephone-based frauds are
particularly prevalent among older adults, who tend not to use ICT as much and as the quote illus-
trates at the start of this article, they have a significant impact on them (ONS, 2021a). There has
been very little research on telephone fraud and much of this small body of knowledge is based
upon American studies from around 20 years ago. This type of fraud therefore deserves more atten-
tion, particularly as this paper will later show, that telephones are still a major vector of attack for
older adults. This paper draws upon research on older adults based upon surveys and interviews
and will provide unique insights into the bombardment of them with attempted telephone frauds
and the impact these attempts have upon them.
This paper will explore telecommunications fraud by starting with a review of the limited litera-
ture in this area. It will examine the extent of telecommunications fraud, identifying the different
types and developing a typology. The paper will then set out the methodology for this research
before presenting the findings.
Telephones and crime
The advent of mass use of telephones in the post-war period was not accompanied by a wave of
research on telephone crime. This probably reflected a smaller number of crime-orientated
researchers at this time and a limited number of new crimes that emerged, compared with the
advent of mass cybercrime more recently. Two areas of research on telephone crime have stimu-
lated a small body of scholarly output, some based on abusive phone calls (Katz, 1994; Sheffield,
1989; Tseloni and Pease, 1998) and some based upon fraud (Reiboldt and Vogel, 2001; Sechrest et
al., 1998; Shover et al., 2003; Titus and Gover, 2001). Compared with cybercrime, however, this
output was relatively small. Before some of this research is considered, it would be useful to con-
ceptualise and explore the nature of telephone fraud.
Telephone fraud
Fraud covers a wide range of behaviours ranging from staff exaggerating their expenses, to complex
investment frauds perpetrated by corporations, to offenders impersonating official bodies to trick
victims into making payments or revealing their important personal information. The essence of
fraud is some form of deception which causes a loss to the victim or gain to the offender. The scope
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