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Cyber-Enabled Financial Abuse of Older Americans: A

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Cyber-Enabled Financial Abuse of Older Americans: A Cyber-Enabled Financial Abuse of Older Americans: A Public Policy Problem An interpretative framework investigating the social, economic, and policy characteristics of cyber-enabled older American financial abuse Christine Lyons A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Public Administration College of Public Affairs University of Baltimore Baltimore, Maryland December, 2019 This dissertation is dedicated to those who bravely shared their story with me in confidence. I am truly honored to be entrusted by you with the details of your financial and emotional trauma stemming from a time in your life so vividly painful. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No one writes a dissertation without significant help from others and this is so very true with this endeavor. I would like to give a special thanks to three strong, admiralty intelligent, and hard-working women, my committee: Dr. Heather Wyatt- Nichol (chair), Dr. Lorenda Naylor, and Dr. Shelly Bumphus. Thank you for not giving up on me and encouraging me to continue to research a much under-studied public administration topic. Without your support, this dissertation would not be finished. I wish to express my thanks to Ms. Nina Helwig; the Adult Protective Services of Montgomery County, MD; and the Fraud Department of the Montgomery County, MD Police. I am also thankful for the time and assistance from Dr. Richard Mestas, as well as two of the best research librarians – Ms. Elizabeth Ventura and Mr. Andrew Wheeler, I am unable to adequately express my gratitude for the unwavering and unconditional support from my life partner of almost forty years, Clint Lyons; our son Clinton, his wife Annie, and our grandchildren CJ, Gabby, Natalie, and Alex; and our daughter Mary-Michael. I love you all beyond words. iv ABSTRACT Cyber-Enabled Financial Abuse of Older Americans: A Public Policy Problem Christine Lyons Global cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime costs more than $400 billion annually with an estimated cost to the US of over $120 billion dollars annually. With the spread of cyber-enabled crime, a troubling trend has evolved in which the victim is unknowingly complicit in the offence. These incidents have arisen as an evolving public policy challenge at all levels of government, including municipal, county, state, federal, and global. This dissertation examines the social, economic, and policy characteristics of cyber-enabled elder financial abuse. Elder financial abuse perpetrated over the Internet straddles two challenging areas of public policy: cybercrime and elder abuse. In the context of cyber-enabled crime, this study first explains the mechanisms whereby individuals fall prey to abuse and second; conducts an older American cyber-safety needs assessment, which collects information to identify the extent to which regulatory policies either mitigate or contribute to the financial abuse of older citizens. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ xii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Exposed Consumer Data Leads to Consumer Losses ................................................... 9 Applicability to Public Administration ........................................................................ 11 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................ 14 Why Study Cyber-Enabled Abuse of Older Americans? ............................................ 15 Finances in Retirement ................................................................................................ 16 Active Use of Technology by Older Americans ......................................................... 18 Background of Cyber-Enabled Financial Abuse ......................................................... 19 Unwitting Self-Victimization ................................................................................ 19 Public Service Delivery and Information Communication Technology ............... 20 Cyberattack-Gleaned Data ..................................................................................... 21 Organizational Responses to Data Theft ............................................................... 21 Privacy and Data Brokers ...................................................................................... 22 Big Data ................................................................................................................. 24 Data Brokers’ Use of Consumers’ Data ................................................................ 26 Legal Consequences .............................................................................................. 29 Behavioral Economics ........................................................................................... 31 vi Reanonymizing Data ............................................................................................. 35 Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................... 36 Conceptual Framework of Cyber-Enabled Elder Financial Abuse Theory ................. 36 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................ 38 Grooming of the Victim .............................................................................................. 40 Review of the Literature .................................................................................................... 44 Information and Communication Technologies .......................................................... 45 The Perpetrator ............................................................................................................ 56 Classifications of Cybercrime and Cybercriminals ............................................... 56 Limitations of Law Enforcement ........................................................................... 77 The Victim ................................................................................................................... 80 Persuasion and Trustworthiness ............................................................................ 84 Older Americans as a Cohort ............................................................................... 101 Financial Exploitation .......................................................................................... 103 Cognitive Function and Grooming ...................................................................... 106 Victim Services .................................................................................................... 112 The Internet and Law ................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. The Historical Framework ......................................................................................... 118 Statement of the Research Problem and Significance of the Research ..................... 125 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 126 The Survey: Justification for Narratives and Case Studies ....................................... 127 Law and Document Analysis ..................................................................................... 130 Process Tracing .......................................................................................................... 130 vii Conceptual Framework .............................................................................................. 135 Types of Data ............................................................................................................. 137 Data Collection .......................................................................................................... 138 Data Sources ........................................................................................................ 139 Data Collection Methods ..................................................................................... 139 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 140 Assumptions and Strengths and Limitations of the Study ......................................... 140 Assumptions ........................................................................................................ 140 Strengths and Limitations .................................................................................... 141 Results ............................................................................................................................. 142 Internet Crime Complaint Center Results ................................................................. 143 Survey Results ........................................................................................................... 147 Characteristics of Respondents ............................................................................ 148 Sentiment from the Survey .................................................................................. 158 Interviews and Case Study Analyses ......................................................................... 158 Characteristics of the Victims .............................................................................
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