Financial Fraud against the Elderly as a Latent Indicator of Intergenerational Breakdown

Intergenerational relations problems are found throughout history. These problems have received a great deal of attention in literature, particularly in sociology and psychology. In recent times the digitization of all spheres of public life and in particular financial services increases the risk of fraud for older adults involving theft of money, property, or valuable personal information. Each year the sophistication and amount of digital financial fraud increases, and older adults have been disproportionately victimized due in large part to their digital illiteracy. Hypothesis: the incidence of cyber fraud against older people will decrease due to closer intergenerational interaction with family members, friends and immediate social circle. This study’s novelty is the use of an intergenerational communication gap perspective to examine older adult financial fraud in Russia. Most previous scientific publications concerning financial sector fraud focus on issues of technological protection against cybercrime using new technologies such as artificial intelligence or focus on the socio-psychological vulnerability of the elderly. The results of this study show a high degree of vulnerability of older people to become victims of cybercrimes, which is due to a whole range of factors, including social, cognitive, financial, technological, and psychological. This article concludes that there is an insufficient focus on strengthening intergenerational ties as a resource for reducing social and financial risks for older family members as well as a resource for increasing the agency of young people to maintain family and public well-being and welfare. The article proposes that the gap in intergenerational communication can be overcome by reverse mentoring, i.e. where a mentor is younger than the mentee.