Fancy "cheating the old", who is being tricked? (People's View)
People's Daily Lin Li oriole Wu Ke
People's Vision
Nowadays, it is common to see news of elderly people being cheated and deceived. Wealth management fraud, health care products marketing, "housing for the elderly" scam, and even pyramid schemes, illegal fund-raising ...... especially in the rapid development of the Internet, the accelerated aging of the population, such a "fast" and "old". Under the new trend of "old", the scams against the elderly are also characterized by new tricks and endless emergence. Even if the media frequently exposed to remind, even if many elderly people with a high level of education, but still fall into the trap, what are the social and psychological reasons behind this? How can the elderly stay away from the trap? Everyone will grow old, how to plug the loopholes and make up for the shortcomings from the system level, so that the elderly can enjoy their twilight years peacefully? We hope our report can push more people to pay attention to these issues.
--Editorial
"Fraudulent" traps are varied
Besides health care consumption, investment in collectibles, high-value loans and high-interest wealth management have also become the hardest-hit areas for the elderly
. "My mom has always been thrifty, I did not expect to buy health care so willing to spend money." Wang Xia, a resident of Hexi District, Tianjin, said helplessly. Her mother, Chen Ying'e, 65, is a retired teacher. "At first she went out to walk, often take back free eggs, sesame oil, towels, etc., I didn't think much of it, and then she bought back a few boxes of health care products, saying that it can treat high blood pressure, spent her 3 months of pension - more than 9,000 yuan!"
Wang Xia felt that the money spent was not worth it, and advised her mother to go to the hospital to see where she was not feeling well, and not to listen to the words of the health care products salesman. Chen Ying'e, however, retorted, "I think it's useful on the line, and besides, I'm spending my own pension. Some people buy more than 100,000 yuan of medicine, I spend this point you heartache?"
The community where Chen Ying'e lives has four health centers filled with elderly people. Shopkeepers see the elderly at the door, "grandparents" called pro, through the health knowledge seminars, free gifts, exaggerating the efficacy of the medicine and other ways to step by step to let the elderly "hooked".
Zhu Beiwei, vice president of the Chinese Society of Food Science and Technology, said: "health care sales, individual enterprises exaggerated propaganda, the main victim group is the elderly." Jinan City, the elderly fraud prevention and rights center released "the elderly legal concept and rights awareness of the status quo survey report" shows that 32.6% of the elderly have encountered fraud, is the main group of victims of fraud, which is dominated by nutritional health care fraud.
In recent years, more and more tricks to deceive the elderly consumption. For example, in the name of investing in retirement apartments, with high returns, the provision of pension services as bait, luring the elderly to join the investment; through the organization of the so-called financial management seminars, free medical check-ups, free travel, the issuance of small gifts, etc., to lure the elderly to invest money.
Yang Nan, a 62-year-old Beijing resident, has no experience in collecting, and by chance he met a staff member of a collection company, and was "fooled" into buying a "celebrity painting", which cost 100,000 yuan. After that, there is a self-proclaimed auction company that can help her find customers, will sell the collection, but need to pay a customs and identification, auction fees. After Yang Nan remitted 50,000 yuan, she could no longer contact the other party.
A questionnaire survey on the needs of 10,000 elderly people conducted by Beijing Law Dimension Aging Research and Service Center showed that health care consumption, investment in collectibles, high-dollar borrowing, and high-interest wealth management have become the hardest-hit areas for elderly people to be cheated.
Elderly people are cheated for complex reasons
Financial insecurity, emotionally neglected by family members, and a lot of loopholes in management
"Invested 30,000 yuan, and it's just gone down the drain." A few years ago, the "e Rent Bao" financial investment, Tianjin resident Liu Dong angry to a point.
At that time, 70-year-old Liu Dong and his friends to a Tianjin office building to listen to the investment and finance class, high returns let him heart. "My son has to pay the mortgage every month, but also for his grandson to go to school, the pressure is great, I want to help him more." Holding a fluke, Liu Dong invested 30,000 yuan. Unexpectedly, six months later, Liu Dong found here empty, "not to mention the interest, the principal is also gone." Liu Dong sighed.
As China enters an aging society, there are more and more scams targeting the elderly. Even if the highly educated elderly, many of them are also difficult to escape the "palm of the hand" of the liar. Why are the elderly so easy to be cheated?
-Lack of economic security.
The elderly in their sixties and seventies are the beneficiaries of the sustained growth in the income level of the population after the reform and opening up, and there is a certain amount of savings, but there is a general lack of investment and financial concepts and knowledge. In particular, there was no personal pension planning when they were young, and their income plummeted after retirement. Many people not only can not count on their children, but also may be "chewing the old", which makes the retired elderly feel economic pressure, lack of wealth security, easy to fall into the trap of fraudsters.
-Psychological needs are ignored by family members.
Zhu Beiwei said, some health care products companies take advantage of the elderly pursuit of health and longevity or sick and reluctant to go to the hospital psychology, through sales staff lobbying, and even hire child care set up to deceive. And family members often ignore the psychological state of the elderly. "Usually we are too busy at work, and in our spare time we have to accompany our children to interest classes, and we really don't have much time to communicate with our parents." Wang Xia said.
Entering old age, people's physical strength and energy are declining, and they need family care. "Elderly people's thirst for care and belonging makes it possible for scammers to take advantage of them." Dr. Cai Liuyang of Tsinghua University's Department of Psychology said, "The scammers will not sell health care products to the elderly at the beginning, and their marketing process will target the special needs of the elderly and gradually trick them into trusting them." The study found that young people usually decide whether to invest or not based on the behavior of the other party, but the elderly are prone to make decisions on the basis of trust in the face of the seemingly "reliable".
--The market for formal senior services is underdeveloped.
Chen Ying'e is not a fan of square dancing after retirement, and has no place to go. Wang Xia said: "I occasionally accompany her shopping, she always said that are young people like things, suitable for the elderly goods are too few." At present, many formal financial institutions, nutritional institutions, medical institutions and other neglect of the needs of the elderly group, rarely penetrate the grassroots to carry out specialized knowledge lectures, but instead let a lot of crooks to occupy this market.
Cai Liuyang believes that the elderly generally have a high degree of acceptance of traditional media, some of the fake "experts" and "professors" appearing on TV or in newspapers have been repeatedly exposed, but there are still many elderly people in the dark. "There should be as much popularization of relevant knowledge as possible, so that the elderly can receive the correct information."
-- The lack of supervision by the relevant departments.
"What's the use of catching crooks when the money is not coming back?" Liu Dong lamented. "There are loopholes in supervision and blind spots in law enforcement by relevant law enforcement departments when dealing with cases of elderly scams." Liu Junhai, vice president of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law Research Society of the China Law Society, said that many cases could not be handled in time to give the elderly a statement and hurt them again.
It is understood that regulators crack down on illegal marketing of health care products, mainly to see whether there is suspected false advertising, the sale of counterfeit and shoddy goods, unlicensed operation and other illegal acts, but many merchants have formal procedures, salespeople are often secretly to the elderly wantonly exaggerate the efficacy of the hard to get evidence. In this regard, the legal profession suggested that health food is often marketed in the form of meetings, which can be based on the "Chinese People's *** and the State Urban Real Estate Management Law", prohibiting hotels, halls and other venues institutions to rent rooms used to engage in illegal business activities. By industry and commerce, public security and other departments to jointly establish a real-time registration platform for housing rental information, so that the above venues to ensure that the health food false propaganda, fraudulent sales and other conference marketing activities to provide places, from the hardware to cut off the false propaganda sales chain.
Don't let the scam continue to harm people
Elderly people hurt their money and sadness and hurt their bodies, "cheating the old" has become a new profession
"My dad always chanting about money for nothing, and sometimes talk to himself, I'm really worried that he will be depressed." Liu Dong's son Liu Jianmin is very worried.
"My mom only eat health products, the result did not control blood pressure, resulting in blurred vision, a trip to the hospital, spent a lot of money." Wang Xia said.
"Elderly people are cheated, self-esteem will also be hurt, trust in others significantly lower, family members if not handled properly, will cause a lot of stress to the elderly mentally, and in serious cases may be accompanied by depression, anxiety and other psychological problems, into a negative state." Cai Liuyang said.
Scams targeting the elderly often cause great harm to the elderly and their families. Some of the elderly were cheated out of years of savings, family life is in trouble, family tensions; some due to improper use of health care products and physical discomfort, and even people and money.
What is more serious is the harm to society. Due to the cost of violation of the law is far less than the illegal gains, cheating the elderly has become a new "occupation", some young people are willing to act as strangers to the elderly "grandchildren" cheating money to make a living, and do not seek proper career development. "High earnings make lawbreakers rampant, pollute the social atmosphere, promote the unprofitable, see profit forgetting the undesirable trend, produce extremely bad social impact." Liu Junhai said bluntly.
Cai Liuyang suggested that if the elderly in the family was cheated, family members should not be blamed, but should give enough care, more companionship for the elderly, understanding of the psychological needs of the elderly, more communication. In daily life more for the elderly popularization of knowledge, give appropriate reminders. In addition, the children rather than blame the elderly, as well as to the Consumer Association to complain about the rights of consumers, or to the public security organs to report the case.
"The elderly generally lack of self-protection awareness, superstitious financial products, health care products, in fact, where in heaven will fall pies?" Liu Junhai reminded the cheated elderly and their relatives to pay attention to the preservation of evidence, such as the agreement, guarantee and so on.
"Relevant regulatory and law enforcement departments, such as industry and commerce, food and drug supervision, public security, etc., should cast regulatory synergy, eliminate regulatory blind zones, the formation of regulatory networks, and the establishment of a seamless prevention and combating mechanism for the elderly scams." Liu Junhai said that the Consumer Association should also do a good job of consumer education and issue consumer warnings on time; the Investor Protection Corporation and the CSI Small and Medium Investor Service Center should strengthen the risk education of the elderly to achieve synergistic *** governance.
In addition, the community and other grass-roots organizations, as well as the children of the elderly should also start from various aspects, to help the elderly to understand the new information, to recognize the scam, to be more vigilant, for the elderly to "tie up a good fence, watch the money bag".